The show opened on Oct. 10, following previews from Sept. 17.

Gracie was the first new play to open in the 2002-03 Broadway season. John Tillinger directs the work, which previously played at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and the Coconut Grove Playhouse. It won Florida's Carbonell Award for Best New Play of 2000.

Since beginning previews, the unprepossessing Gracie has slowly grown into a quiet hit, playing to largish audiences and building up a tidy advance. Gorshin's turn has met with standing ovations.

In Say Goodnight Gracie , comedian George Burns finds himself caught in limbo, unable to enter heaven until he plays his last performance, thereby preserving his perfect record of having never missed a curtain. Beginning with Burns' poverty-stricken youth on the Lower East Side of New York City, Gorshin recreates the great comedian's life, from his success in vaudeville and on the radio to his marriage to the love of his life, Gracie Allen, and her tragic death; finishing with Burns' late-in life, Academy Award-winning success on the silver screen and his establishment as a 20th-Century entertainment and comedy icon.

Photos by Aubrey Reuben BOTTOM: (L-R) George Wallace, Frank Gorshin, Jerry Seinfeld