Mamma Mia where are the new comedies?

Last year had more comedies than we’ve seen in years.

• Oh Mary
• Death Becomes Her
• Operation Mincemeat
• All In
• The Roommate
• Smash
• Boop
• plus things like Real Women and Dead Outlaw which have humor but aren’t laugh riots

And that’s only Broadway.

Neil Simon is available to anyone who wants to produce him. I don’t think the world needs him at the moment. 

MAMMA MIA is recognizable, battle-tested, and simple-minded comfort food. 

To that end, asking for new comedies and then referencing Neil Simon (who died in 2018) is…certainly a paradoxical statement.

I think of the adage “dying is easy, comedy is hard” since everyone has a different threshold for humor and we live in a time where there is some one who would get outraged by a simple throwaway line or sight gag. For every one of us who rolls in the aisles and makes double digit trips to Oh, Mary, there are likely quite a few in that theatre who find that 80 minutes agonizingly offensive. (I remember two old ladies walking out during the medley at Cole’s second to last show and they riffed “Oh, NOW you decide to leave?” to the amusement of the audience.)