The papers of the late Tony-winning playwright Neil Simon have been acquired by the Library of Congress, where they will be available to researchers after they have been processed. The acquisition will be formally announced April 25 with a live streamed conversation about Simon's legacy with Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, both currently co-starring in a revival of Simon's Plaza Suite on Broadway. The talk will be moderated by Plaza Suite director John Benjamin Hickey. Watch the event above from 7 PM ET.
Among the items included in the collection are developmental drafts of Simon's plays and many unfinished or unproduced scripts and screenplays, notably including an unproduced screenplay written to co-star Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg entitled The Merry Widows. The collection also includes Simon's Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, personal notebooks, and signed baseballs—the Lost in Yonkers playwright was reportedly a fan.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the collection also includes more than a dozen notepads filled with Simon's artwork, with watercolors, drawings, and cartoons all represented.
Simon, who died in 2018, began his career working in radio and TV, ultimately opening 30 original works on Broadway. His 1991 Lost in Yonkers won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and he was a three-time Tony winner. Simon is currently represented on Broadway with a revival of Plaza Suite, currently running at the Hudson Theatre.
The Neil Simon Papers will become the latest in the Library of Congress's large archive of papers from Broadway writers, including Marvin Hamlisch, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon, Howard Ashman, Jonathan Larson, and more.