Broadway play altered following marathon blasts

NEW YORK (AP) — Playwright Richard Greenberg has edited parts of his new play “The Assembled Parties” following the bombings at the Boston Marathon to cut an unflattering reference to the city of Boston and rework a section about someone building a bomb.

The Manhattan Theatre Club said Thursday that the playwright volunteered to make the changes before the show opened Wednesday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. The twin bombings Monday at the marathon site killed three people and wounded more than 180.

“All of us involved in the production of ‘The Assembled Parties’ were saddened by Monday’s tragedy in Boston and have deep compassion for all who were affected,” said the club’s artistic director Lynne Meadow, who also directed the work, a world premiere.

In the play, starring Jessica Hecht, Judith Light and Jeremy Shamos, Greenberg follows a Jewish family through two Christmas Day gatherings. The changes to the script all happen to Act 1, set in 1980.

Shamos plays a graduate student at Harvard University and is asked if he likes Boston. He replies: “There’s something wrong with Boston, isn’t there? But Cambridge is fun.” Later, the same character discusses a student who built a bomb for extra credit. The line about Boston was cut and the scene in which the bomb-maker was raised was rewritten.

The play opened to very good reviews. Tony Award-winner Greenberg’s other plays include “Take Me Out,” ”The American Plan” and “Three Days of Rain.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press