Garry Marshall, Entertainment Legend, To Direct “Billy & Ray” Off Broadway

It’ll be Happy Days in New York’s theater district come fall, when venerable show biz titan Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) comes to town to direct the New York premiere of Mike Bencivenga’s play Billy & Ray. The titular Billy & Ray are the great director Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot) and the noir novelist Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep). In Billy & Ray, Bencivenga delivers a comedic exploration of the tensions that created the 1940s screen masterpiece, Double Indemnity. Wilder and Chandler co-wrote the film.

Garry Marshall directed Billy & Ray in its world premiere in Los Angeles in the spring of 2013, where it won universal praise. The New York run will begin in October at the Vineyard Theater. Meanwhile you can read a little Mike Bencivenga in this 2paragraphs interview.