Broadway - How Excited Are You?: “860”

by Chris Peterson

Next up in our look at how excited we should be for upcoming Broadway shows is Billy Crystal’s 860. And I’m not going to pretend to be neutral here: I’m a Billy Crystal fan.

But even beyond that, this feels like a pretty perfect match of performer and material.

860 is a new one-man show written and performed by Crystal, inspired by the Los Angeles home he and his family lived in for 46 years before it was destroyed in the Palisades fires. The title comes from the home’s street number, and Crystal will use those memories to tell stories about the life that happened inside those walls.

If you’re going to ask me to sit in a Broadway theatre and listen to one person tell stories for 100 minutes, Billy Crystal is pretty high on the list of people I’d want doing it.

His 700 Sundays was also built around personal storytelling and became a major Broadway success, winning the 2005 Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. It later returned to Broadway in 2013.

So 860 doesn’t feel like a celebrity vanity project. Crystal has already proven that he knows how to hold a Broadway audience by himself.

The subject matter also interests me. There’s obviously tremendous sadness behind the loss of a home you lived in for nearly half a century, but the show is being described as funny and intimate, with Crystal looking at how laughter can carry us through difficult moments. That sounds exactly like the kind of material I want to hear him tell.

It’s also a very manageable night at the theatre. When I looked, I saw a lot of seats roughly in the $130-$320 range, depending on the performance and location. That’s certainly not cheap, but considering this is Billy Crystal, on Broadway, in a limited engagement, I was expecting the numbers to scare me a little more than they did.

So, how excited am I for 860?

9/10.

Give Billy Crystal a Broadway stage, 100 minutes, and a lifetime of stories to tell.

I’m there.

Previews begin October 1 at the Imperial Theatre, with opening night set for October 21 and the limited run currently scheduled through January 3. Scott Ellis directs.