Winner of the 1997 Tony Award for Best Play. “Everything falls into place in thiswonderfully crafted script.” —Variety. “Alfred Uhry’s charming Broadway comedy (sort of) THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOOhas a subtext and undertow of thought. It is a delightful comedy freighted with an uncomfortable message.” —New York Post. The Last Night of Ballyhoo This play by Alfred Uhry is suitable for older students to perform or discuss. It takes place over the Christmas season in 1939, but the characters are from a Jewish family in the South that actually has a Christmas tree in their home. The Last Night of Ballyhoo T he Last Night of Ballyhoo takes place in Atlanta, Georgia in December of 1939. Gone With the Wind is in the throes of its premiere and Hitler is invading Poland, but Atlanta’s German Jewish elite are much more concerned with Christmas and who is going to Ballyhoo, the Jewish social event of the season.
In his second play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Alfred Uhry explores the lives of Jewish southerners, a society that he introduced to the American theater-going public with his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Driving Miss Daisy. The setting and plot of The Last Night of Ballyhoo developed from stories Uhry heard growing up in a southern Jewish family, as well as his own experiences. As he told Don Shewey from American Theatre, 'I went to one of the last Ballyhoos there was, when I was 16—it was like a German-Jewish debutante ball.' However, Uhry also had a keen desire to explore Jewish identity, including prejudice inflicted on Jews by other Jews. Uhry combined these two interests to create the privileged world of the Levy/Freitag families. They live in a large home on one of Atlanta's finest streets. They belong to an elite country club. Their children may attend prestigious private universities. All these trappings and conveniences of wealth, however, cannot change the fact that they are Jews who live in an overwhelmingly Christian society. The prejudice that they experience as a result of their religion does not deter them from embracing mainstream southern society or from replicating this discrimination within their own culture; German-Jews such as the Levys and Freitags look down on 'the other kind' of Jews—Eastern European Jews. While The Last Night of Ballyhoo deftly explores this anti-Semitism, Uhry also intersperses his serious message with sparkling banter, comedic non sequiturs, and hilarious characters and characterization. The Last Night of Ballyhoo was first produced at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 and went to Broadway the following year; its play script is available from Theatre Communications Group.
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Last Night Of Ballyhoo Summary
In his second play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Alfred Uhry explores the lives of Jewish southerners, a society that he introduced to the American theater-going public with his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Driving Miss Daisy. The setting and plot of The Last Night of Ballyhoo developed from stories Uhry heard growing up in a southern Jewish family, as well as his own experiences. As he told Don Shewey from American Theatre, 'I went to one of the last Ballyhoos there was, when I was 16—it was like a German-Jewish debutante ball.' However, Uhry also had a keen desire to explore Jewish identity, including prejudice inflicted on Jews by other Jews. Uhry combined these two interests to create the privileged world of the Levy/Freitag families. They live in a large home on one of Atlanta's finest streets. They belong to an elite country club. Their children may attend prestigious private universities. All these trappings and conveniences of wealth, however, cannot change the fact that they are Jews who live in an overwhelmingly Christian society. The prejudice that they experience as a result of their religion does not deter them from embracing mainstream southern society or from replicating this discrimination within their own culture; German-Jews such as the Levys and Freitags look down on 'the other kind' of Jews—Eastern European Jews. While The Last Night of Ballyhoo deftly explores this anti-Semitism, Uhry also intersperses his serious message with sparkling banter, comedic non sequiturs, and hilarious characters and characterization. The Last Night of Ballyhoo was first produced at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 and went to Broadway the following year; its play script is available from Theatre Communications Group.