Murray Schisgal: Lucky In 'Luv'

I have a theory,” said East Hampton resident Murray Schisgal. “Luck is a more important item in one’s agenda than talent, ability and anything else artistic you can think of. When you’re lucky, things fall your way.”

As Mr. Schisgal readily admits, that has been true for him and his play “LUV,” which opened on Broadway in 1964. Directed by Mike Nichols and starring Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach, and Anne Jackson, it was an immediate hit.

The New York Times review stated that the play “is a delicious spoof on a multitude of matters: love, marriage, loneliness, lost identity, homosexuality, suicide, housekeeping—you name it, Mr. Schisgal probably has a guffaw at its expense.”

Audiences continue to guffaw at “LUV”: The play is presently being staged in Paris, Warsaw, Hungary, and East Hampton, with the production at Guild Hall opening this Saturday after two preview performances.

It wasn’t luck that created “LUV”—it ran for almost three years on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play—but the first production of it and the establishment of the author’s career owe much to benevolent theater gods. The Brooklyn-born Mr. Schisgal had written numerous short stories and three novels, but none found a publisher.

“I had read many plays, and having no other choice I wrote a play,” he recalled. “The first two I wrote got produced. I had never even set foot on a stage until they were produced.”

“My wife and I were going to London and then on to Spain where I was going to write because we could afford to live there. We were at a going-away party in New York and a friend of mine introduced me to a theater critic from London. I had written those two short plays, and he agreed to read them. He called me and said he liked them and in London I should look up this producer, he has a theater there. Bingo. I did, he read the plays, he produced them, and I had a career.”

His career took off with “LUV.” Another piece of luck was getting to work with Mr. Nichols, who was just then emerging as a hot director.

“Mike was just coming off the success of directing Neil Simon’s play ‘Barefoot in the Park,’ and my producer, Claire Nichtern, sent it to him,” Mr. Schisgal recounted. “He read it and said he’d do it. That was pretty darn lucky. It was a joy working with him. Eli and Anne were all set to go because they had done a couple of my short plays and we all wanted to work together again. Alan was the final piece of the puzzle. And then it opened.”

When asked if it was satisfying to have had the play, with universal themes and plenty of laughs, produced umpteen times around the world for 48 years, Mr. Schisgal replied, “It has certainly been financially satisfying.”

It wasn’t money, though, that first brought the Schisgals out to East Hampton in the 1960s, when after renting they bought a house that backs up onto Accabonac Creek.

“What was truly astonishing about East Hampton as a summer resort back then was that it was not a high-class operation,” he said. “On the contrary, the farther out on Long Island you went the less expensive it was, was the formula then. It had a vitality and sense of community of artists, writers, and musicians. Many of the abstract expressionist artists were here. I used to shoot pool with Willem de Kooning on Friday nights, and he was no better than I was. Now East Hampton is an expensive deal, but back then one went out there because it was cheap. To rent a place for the summer was really a bargain.”

Mr. Schisgal continued to write plays that were produced in New York, one of them being “Jimmy Shine,” which starred a newcomer named Dustin Hoffman, who had just filmed “The Graduate,” also directed by Mr. Nichols. A close, lifelong friendship began as well as a partnership to produce movies. Their most famous collaboration, though, originated as something like an accident.

“At parties, after having a drink or two, I’d do a stand-up skit about a little woman who lived inside me named Shirley,” Mr. Schisgal recalled. “One night Dusty picked up on that and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could find a picture to play as a woman.’ I came up with the name ‘Tootsie,’ and we worked on it and developed it. Then Dusty reached out to Larry Gelbart. He wrote the script and went on to his next project. Sidney [Pollack] begins shooting the picture, and I’m on the set every day doing rewrites of the script.”

It was another dream cast for the writer: Jessica Lange, who earned her first Oscar for her work in the movie; Bill Murray; Teri Garr; Dabney Coleman; Charles Durning and Geena Davis, in addition to Mr. Hoffman.

“Tootsie” was a huge hit, and Mr. Schisgal and Mr. Gelbart shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay—even though they hadn’t actually spent a day working together. Mr. Schisgal appears in the movie as, appropriately, a party guest.

For information and reservations for “LUV,” visit guildhall.org.