BEN STILLER: June 4, 1978: Jerry Stiller and Ben Stiller attend the performance of "The Gin Game"

Sunday, June 4, 1978

June 4, 1978: Jerry Stiller and Ben Stiller attend the performance of "The Gin Game"

NEW YORK CITY - JUNE 4, 1978:

Jerry Stiller and Ben Stiller attend the performance of "The Gin Game" on June 4, 1978 at the Martin Beck Theater in New York City. Photos at the 45th and 8th Avenue in New York City, New York.

The Gin Game is a two-person, two-act play by Donald L. Coburn that premiered at American Theater Arts in Hollywood in September 1976, directed by Kip Niven. It was Coburn's first play, and the theater's first production. The play won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In the second episode of the eighth season (2005) of the CBS sitcom The King of Queens, Arthur (Jerry Stiller) is directing The Gin Game at the local senior center and has trouble casting Fonsia.

The Gin Game won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for 1978. The Pulitzer jury, in awarding the prize, said: "The one new play...of sufficient originality, invention and staying power was 'The Gin Game'".

The play premiered in a production by American Theatre Arts in Los Angeles, California in September 1976, directed by Kip Niven. The play went on to be presented at the Actors Theatre of Louisville festival of new plays, the Long Wharf Theatre (New Haven) in July 1977, and the Wilbur Theatre, Boston.

The Gin Game opened on Broadway on October 6, 1977 at the John Golden Theatre and closed on December 31, 1978 after 517 performances. The play was directed by Mike Nichols and starred the married couple Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.

Adaptations for television versions were made in 1981 produced by Archer King with Cronyn and Tandy for Showtime. Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore appeared in a televised film on PBS in May 2003.

Plot
Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident.

While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.

Wikipedia

The purple combo and the ill fitting TeleBid tee put this is right under the signing of the Magna Carta history wise. #PublicTelevsion #NEA https://t.co/Yhch9fXrko
— Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) March 13, 2017