Drama, Full Length
5 men, 2 women

Winner of the 1999 Tony Award for Best Play. "SIDE MAN…is…a tender, deeply personal memory play about the turmoil in the family of a jazz musician as his career crumbles at the dawn of the age of rock-and-roll…It's a gentle reminder of bygone days, when a new play by Tennessee Williams or William Inge would stir up the public and fill seats for months." —NY Times. "SIDE MAN…is an elegy for two things—a lost world and a lost love. When the two notes sound together in harmony, it is moving and graceful…SIDE MAN evokes their loss with sweet, but never sentimental, poignancy. Framed as a memory play narrated by the son of a skilled, passionate trumpet player, it has, at times, the depth of feeling of an exile longing for home." —NY Daily News. "An atmospheric memory play, SIDE MAN spans three decades in the life of a Manhattan musician. Playwright Warren Leight, whose father was a sideman, incisively captures the pulse and climate of the New York jazz scene, with crisp dialogue and clearly drawn characters. What appears on the surface to be a familiar domestic drama subtly reflects the passing of an era with persuasive insight…The joy and despair of the musicians is skillfully illustrated." —Variety.