Say Goodnight Gracie


The Life, Laughter and Love of
George Burns & Gracie Allen

Say Goodnight Gracie is the hit Broadway play that invites you to spend a hilarious, heart-warming evening in the uplifting company of the world’s favorite and funniest centenarian. George Burns, who spanned one hundred years of American entertainment history, is now miraculously alive and kicking in a stunning tour de force. Say Goodnight Gracie was Broadway’s third longest running solo performance show and was nominated for a 2003 Tony Award for BEST PLAY and won the 2003-04 National Broadway Theatre Award for BEST PLAY.

In Say Goodnight Gracie, we discover George in limbo between this world and the next, unable to join his beloved wife and partner Gracie Allen until he gives the Command Performance of his lifetime for God. He looks back upon his impoverished, plucky youth on the lower East Side of New York… his disastrous but tenacious career in Vaudeville ... the momentous day when he meet a fabulously talented young Irish girl named Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen … their instant chemistry, with his flawless timing a perfect mate to her dizzy delivery ... his wooing of her, their marriage and their rise to the pinnacles of Vaudeville, Movies, Radio and Television. Gracie’s demise forced George to start from square one in life and in his career, eventually achieving an equal level of success as a solo raconteur and Academy Award-winning actor, portraying everything from a Sunshine Boy to, oh, God.

Say Goodnight Gracie is a multimedia presentation that also features the skillful vocal talents of actress Didi Conn (“Frenchie” from GREASE) as well as evocative music and moving images from George’s long life and good times. The play has been created with the approval and cooperation of the Estate of George Burns and Gracie Allen. Its author is multiple Tony Award-winning playwright Rupert Holmes, whose Broadway credits include the Tony Award-winning musical The Mystery Of Edwin Drood and who is also creator and writer of the nostalgic Emmy Award-winning comedy series Remember WENN. Distinguished director John Tillinger, whose numerous Broadway credits include Judgment at Nuremburg, The Sunshine Boys, Loot, Love Letters, Inherit the Wind as well as the recent hit comedy House and Gardens steers the production with a sense of wit, warmth and intimacy.

Say Goodnight Gracie is a tender, funny, life-affirming love story ... a personal guided tour through an American century in the company of George Burns, a man who laughingly lived and loved each day for all it had to offer, until he finally went “gently into that good night” to forever reunite with his beloved Gracie.

 



Nathan quits school - forms his first "professional" entertainment group, "THE PEE WEE QUARTET".



George always looking for his next partner.
 




George and Billy Lorraine split up, Gracie quits her comedy team, quits secretarial school and teams up with George.



Gracie agrees to marry George.
 




Burns and Allen appear for the first time on radio on the BBC.


Burns and Allen adopt a baby girl, Sandra Jean


Burns and Allen adopt a baby boy, Ronald Jon
 




Gracie begins her campaign for President of the United States.


The last Burns and Allen TV show is broadcast.
 




George’s best friend, Jack Benny dies.



SAY GOODNIGHT GRACIE
opens on Broadway.