Romantic Comedy is a play by Bernard Slade

Bernard Slade

Bernard Slade is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter.Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, Slade began his career as an actor with the Garden Center Theatre in Vineland, Ontario. In the mid-1960s, he relocated to Hollywood and began to work as a writer for television sitcoms, including Bewitched...

, author of Same Time, Next Year

Same Time, Next Year

Same Time, Next Year is 1975 comedy play by Bernard Slade. The plot focuses on two people, married to others, who meet for a romantic tryst once a year for two dozen years.-Plot:...

.

The plot focuses on Phoebe Craddock and Jason Carmichael, playwrights who meet and decide to collaborate just as he is getting married. Their relationship produces first a failure and then a string of successes, and their repartée remains sharp and witty as their unrequited interest in each other gathers energy over a nine-year period, until some resolution finally is in sight.

Following eleven previews, the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production opened on November 8, 1979 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre

Ethel Barrymore Theatre

The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 243 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan, named for actress Ethel Barrymore....

, where it ran for 396 performances. The show was directed by Joseph Hardy

Joseph Hardy (director)

Joseph Hardy is an American Tony Award-winning stage director, film director, television producer, and occasional performer....

, scenery by Douglas W. Schmidt, costumes by Jane Greenwood

Jane Greenwood

Jane Greenwood is a costume designer for the stage, television, film, opera, and dance. Born in Liverpool, England, she works both in England and the United States. She has been nominated for the Tony Award for costume design seventeen times.-Biography:Greenwood attended Liverpool Art School and...

, and lighting by Tharon Musser

Tharon Musser

Tharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field....

.The original cast included Mia Farrow

Mia Farrow

Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...

 (Phoebe Craddock), Anthony Perkins

Anthony Perkins

Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...

 (Jason Carmichael), Carole Cook

Carole Cook

Carole Cook is an American actress. She has appeared in many theatrical productions, in films and on television.Born as Mildred Frances Cook, she was a protege of Lucille Ball. Ball gave her the stage name of "Carole", after her friend Carole Lombard because, Ball reportedly told Cook, "you have...

 (Blanche Dailey), Holly Palance

Holly Palance

Holly Palance is an American actress.Palance was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of the actor Jack Palance and his wife Virginia Baker. Holly was the first of three children born to the couple, followed by Brooke Palance in 1952 and Cody Palance in 1955...

 (Allison St. James), Greg Mullavey (Leo Janowitz), and Deborah May

Deborah May

Deborah May is a television and film actress. She has appeared in such TV shows as ER, The Golden Girls, Days of our Lives, The Larry Sanders Show, Murder One, St...

 (Kate Mallory). Benay Venuta

Benay Venuta

Benay Venuta was an American actress, singer and dancer.Born Benvenuta Rose Crooke in San Francisco, Venuta attended finishing school in Geneva and lived in London where she worked as a dancer before returning to the States. She made her first screen appearance in the silent Trail of '98 in 1928...

 and Keith Baxter

Keith Baxter (actor)

Keith Baxter is a Welsh theatre, film and television actor.- Early years & RADA :Born in Newport, Wales in 1933. Baxter was educated at Newport High School and Barry Grammar School, Baxter studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, during which period he shared a flat with classmate Alan...

 were replacements later.

In 1983, Slade adapted his play for a feature film directed by Arthur Hiller

Arthur Hiller

Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...

.