This Off-Broadway play explores Jewish icon Gene Wilder’s love story with Gilda Radner

The love story between late Jewish American actors Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner sits at the heart of Gene & Gilda, an Off-Broadway play now running at 59E59 Theaters on Manhattan’s Upper East Side through September 7.

For the uninitiated: the couple first met on the set of Hanky Panky in 1981, quickly falling into a whirlwind romance that led to their 1984 marriage—a union that lasted until Radner’s untimely death in 1989 at the age of 42 from ovarian cancer.

The production traces the arc of their relationship, from that first spark on set to their much talked-about, tragical early farewell.

The 80-minute play had its world premiere at Penguin Rep Theatre in upstate New York in 2023. Much of the original team is back for this latest staging, including playwright Cary Gitter, director Joe Brancato and actors Jonathan Randell Silver and Jordan Kai Burnett, who once again step into the roles of Wilder and Radner, respectively.

The return of the two leads in particular comes as no surprise—after all, as noted in a 2023 Broadway World review, “the two actors are dead ringers for Gene and Gilda. The resemblance right out of the gate is uncanny.”

Another thing left unchanged: the devoted swath of Wilder and Radner fans who have been filling the seats since the production’s premiere in late July.

Tickets to the play are available here.