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Tony and Emmy Award winner Billy Crystal has returned to Broadway in 860, a new one-man show directed by Scott Ellis, now playing at the Imperial Theatre. The reviews are coming in! Find out what critics are saying about the production.
Following the Palisades fires that destroyed his home, Crystal reflects on his family, career, and the memories that have shaped his life. The show explores themes of friendship, love, loss, and the role of humor in navigating difficult experiences.
The creative team includes original music and adaptations by Marc Shaiman, scenic design by Scott Pask, lighting design by Jen Schriever, sound design by Dan Moses Schreier, and video design by Hana S. Kim and Kylee Loera. Davin De Santis serves as production stage manager.
Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times: *CRITIC’S PICK* “860” is a story about how Billy Crystal became Billy Crystal, and it is crucial in its telling to make clear that this is a guy who didn’t have money starting out, and who for a while was a daytime stay-at-home dad and a nighttime nascent comic, honing his act. When he and Janice buy the house, which comes with an amphitheater, he makes sure to note that they got a deal. Lack of pretentiousness — despite the wealth and fame he found — is intrinsic to his appeal.
Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times: Making a show about a recent public trauma isn’t easy to pull off, but Crystal has managed it as perhaps only he could. “860” is a meditation on loss, but it’s also a theatrical memoir of his multifarious career as a comic, actor, filmmaker and celebrated Oscar host.
Adam Feldman, Time Out New York: Although the show has its fair share of shadows—dark Crystal, if you like—it is brightened by a torch that Crystal carries high: his abiding love for Janice, his wife of 56 years. And of course, above all, it is funny. Heir to the Borscht belt tradition he dramatized in Mr. Saturday Night, Crystal is a master of polished shtick who is also uncommonly connected to his audience; he makes the 1,450-seat Imperial Theatre, which normally hosts huge productions like Les Misérables and Chess, feel cozy. (700 Sundays and 860 are the only non-musicals to play there since the Seventies.) When he’s up there getting laughs, he seems completely at home, and—the consummate host, as ever—he invites us all in.
Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: This is a comfy cardigan of a show, full of warm reminiscences and genial impressions of everyone from Jack Nicholson to Robin Williams to Robin Williams doing Ronald Reagan in the afterlife. (“It’s hotter than I thought it would be… I’m in a hot tub with Roy Cohn and his balls are resting on the bridge of my nose.”) Crystal takes gentle swipes at conservative bête noires such as Kissinger, Kash Patel, and Donald Trump — but they come off more as a rope-a-dope to fill out the routine than punches meant to deliver a knockout.
Juan A. Ramirez, The Guardian: His latest solo show, 860, proves again that there’s likely no such thing as a bad time in Crystal’s company, even if its structure stretches any notion of “plot”. Named after the address of the Los Angeles house he inhabited for most of his life, it finds Crystal in an existential but ultimately grateful mode, having lost that longtime home to the region’s fires last year and taking stock of his improbably rich 78 years on earth.
Jami Ganz, Entertainment Weekly: 860 is as succinct as it is poignant, with Crystal taking audience members by the hand and down his memory lane — and refusing to let go of their hearts. After all, this is the man who gave us, “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Grade: A
Caitlin Hornik, The Independent: Laughter is medicine; Crystal knows this to be true. Leaning into humor even in the darkest moments is, we learn, his superpower. When Crystal returns to the stage during his well-deserved curtain call with the “laughter” rock raised above his head, it’s a triumph in more ways than one.
Johnny Oleksinki, The New York Post: A lot, actually. In the 21 years since his last hit solo outing on Broadway, “700 Sundays,” those three dear friends have all died, two in truly horrible ways. Particularly when he begins to talk about Reiner, who was killed less than a year ago, and the off-camera fun of making “When Harry Met Sally,” we realize that not only does Crystal need to talk about these men publicly, but, like with 860 Chautauqua Blvd., he desperately needs to hold onto the good times. Not the bad.
Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Theatre Guide: Yet, the show is, in the end, about laughter — the word is etched into a stone salvaged from the property’s ruins. Even Crystal’s post-fire fixation on his and Janice’s mortality is really the setup for a punchline. That’s the takeaway of 860: Sometimes, seriously, all you can do is laugh.
David Gordon, TheaterMania: 860 was obviously written quickly (we’re not even a year removed from the Reiner murders), and therefore it’s more reactive and less dramatically rigorous than 700 Sundays, which benefited from several decades of self-examination (it was about 15-year-old Crystal losing his father). Here, we’re a fly on the wall as Crystal processes his grief in real time, using his well-honed tool of humor to keep himself from despair. This play has the biggest heart, and that heart is clearly broken.
Robert Hofler, The Wrap: Scott Ellis directs, and he, Pask and Crystal don’t leave that beloved study intact for long. Soon, the stage is filled with images of an inferno (brilliant video design by Hana S. Kim and Kylee Loera). The Tony Awards have nominated Ellis nine times for his direction of Broadway shows, usually musicals or big ensemble dramas like “Twelve Angry Men.” A 10th nomination for Ellis might be the charm, because “860,” despite being a one-man show, plays like a big opera without any singing. The stage at the Imperial repeatedly explodes, and it’s not just the Palisades fire that keeps us riveted.
Matthew Wexler, 1 Minute Critic: While Crystal uses the loss of the house and the physical memories it held as a framework for the evening, its most captivating moments unfold in the relationships he built over 50 years in the entertainment industry.
Matt Windman, amNY: Four years ago, when Billy Crystal returned to Broadway in a well-meaning but forgettable musical adaptation of his film “Mr. Saturday Night,” one couldn’t help but wish that he would have just done stand-up comedy or a new one-man show instead, or even just revived “700 Sundays,” his hilarious and moving autobiographical show about growing up on Long Island and losing his father at 15.
Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: Crystal remains, for me, a vital, in-the-moment artist. He has now committed himself to the service of reminding us all that laughter in the face of loss is a good life philosophy, given the paucity of other viable options. Keep going, Mr. Crystal. You’ve expunged the fire now. Don’t look back too much now.
Greg Evans, Deadline: But Crystal uses these lost objects the way Proust pondered a madeleine, as a vibe-inducing cue that can transport him – and, with him as our guide, us – back to the highlights of a life filled with many. And since we’ve all borne witness to so many this star’s transformational moments both public and private, we can’t help being moved by the poignance of the nostalgia offered up from stage of the Imperial Theatre.
Roma Torre, New York Stage Review: Billy Crystal’s new one-man show, 860, is a love story. The 78 year old comedian has a lot of love in his life: his wife Janice to whom he’s been married for 56 years, his two daughters, Jenny and Lindsay, and his grandsons. But beside the family, his other great love was his house in Pacific Palisades which perished in the devastating fires back in January 2025. He took the loss very hard because, as he said, everything in it marking all the cherished remembrances over his 47 years in the house was gone. As heartbreaking as it all was, who else but Billy Crystal could tread that fine line between comedy and tragedy, evoking tears and laughter in equal measure.
Frank Scheck, New York Stage Review: Throughout it all, he delivers hilarious one-liners with the expert comic timing of a veteran Borscht Belt comedian, enlivened by expressive facial expressions and body language. His gift for physical comedy is showcased in a riotous account of a psychedelic drug trip he experienced along with his older brother, culminating with a photograph that has to be seen to be believed.
Average Rating: 87.6%
