About the Show

One Christmas in 1980 sparks decades of change for a dazzling, complicated New York family.

The Assembled Parties follows the glamorous but unraveling world of the Bascovs, a wealthy New York family hosting their traditional Christmas feast—despite being Jewish—in their luxurious Central Park West apartment. In 1980, former film star Julie Bascov and her husband Ben welcome their son and his Harvard friend Jeff, who is instantly enchanted by the charm and elegance of their lives. But when Jeff returns twenty years later, he finds a family transformed by time, loss, and shifting fortunes. Richard Greenberg’s sharp and poignant comedy-drama explores memory, privilege, and the passage of time with wit and emotional depth.

Critic Reviews (7)

"It’s saddening to read a programme interview with the author knowing he didn’t live to see this production, though Greenberg’s own distaste for travel suggests he would have been unlikely to make the journey regardless."
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"They’re a great double-act, more yin-and-yang sisters than sisters-in-law. The rest of the cast do all they can with characters that have little interior life or backstory. "
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"Richard Greenberg’s decade-hopping family drama is disappointingly thin"
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"a play that represents the fragility and fleeting nature of life, the importance of family and the tragedy of loss we all must deal with in our own lives in a production that feels especially poignant but no less pivotal."
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" 'best ever Christmas'... this is an intensely bittersweet line, with just an injection of uplifting emotion in its final stages to keep the drama buoyant."
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"The dialogue is sharp, the plot, while sometimes bizarre, is well-paced, and the overall effect is utterly charming."
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"Blanche McIntyre’s direction keeps the finely tuned comic dialogue rattling along in the first half... It’s a Christmas well worth waiting for."
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