“Two Men, three jobs.”

Oscar Goodman, the legendary Las Vegas mob attorney turned three-term Mayor, was someone you should definitely not like. But someone impossible not to love. He represented killers, after all; mafia, real mafia, but insisted he never knew there was a mafia. That particular blind spot ended up not making it into the final draft.

What I hope did make it in was Oscar’s brilliance as an attorney, charm as a man, and uncommon warmth as a human being. I love Oscar Goodman, and it was one of the thrills of my life at the last workshop to watch him and his extraordinary wife, Mayor Carolyn Goodman, leap to their feet after watching themselves portrayed, witheringly at times, by the great Douglas Sills and Mamie Parris.

Once again directed by Richard Israel, the trajectory of this show was cut short by the Coronavirus pandemic but will ostensibly be revived upon its eventual – one imagines – containment. I hope so; Oscar Goodman has a lot to say about Democracy, the Rule of Law, and the promise of an American Dream for All. I believe the musical written in his name does, too.