Comedy-Drama/ 3 characters, 1 man, 2 women/ One Act

Synopsis: The Specialty is a bittersweet comedy that explores the passage of time and the evolution of human relationships. Set in a provincial French restaurant, the play spans decades, with scenes set in 1956, 1971, and 1983. It follows the interactions between Marielle, the restaurant owner, and a visiting couple, Alain and Dédette, whose lives intertwine with hers across these years.

In the 1950s, young and idealistic, Alain and Dédette stumble into Marielle’s eatery during a cycling trip, encountering her warmth and wisdom. Over time, their visits to the restaurant mirror their personal transformations, from romantic youth to disillusioned adulthood and finally, to a confrontation with their own nostalgia and choices.

Marielle, meanwhile, represents stability amidst change, her restaurant reflecting the evolving societal landscape. The play contrasts the characters’ dreams and disappointments, using humor and poignancy to address themes of love, ambition, and the inexorable march of time.

With sharp dialogue, the story is both a celebration of life’s simple pleasures and a meditation on its complexities, leaving audiences with a mix of laughter and reflection.

“A delicious ‘aperitif show’, light and charming.” – ELLE

“All aspects of human life are encompassed: suffering, exuberant joy, youthful freshness, resignation. An ambitious and artisanal play, mixing past and
present with a maximum of humor.” – Kirchlinteln

Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Alan Rossett
rossdoal@aol.com
Ph: (33) 1 73 75 57 65

About the Playwright: “Cocteau meets Woody Allen” was film-director Jean Delannoy’s comment on Alan Rossett, the only American to have French language plays produced regularly in France . . . and to receive awards from the Centre National des Lettres. Born in Detroit, he began his career as an actor in New York, where he appeared for a season with the Living Theatre and also as James Earl Jones’ first Iago. Relocating in Paris, he wrote and directed an evocation of Montmartre Light and Shade with Charles Boyer. Then his comedy High Time went from London to Sydney to New York (at the Actors Studio) and wound up, translated, in a Parisian cafe theatre before transferring to La Bruyere, a Broadway category house.

Rossett made the language cross-over into French with two plays set in restaurants which he staged in the midst of diners at a show biz hang-out, running 200 performances. Many other productions followed of his French-language plays, including How It Happened, Cat As Cat Can, Love On Ice, Calamity Jane.

His French plays are published by Avant-Scene Theatre, Editions des quatre-vents, Editions Art et Comedie et Librairie Theatrale. He has adapted into English many of his own works as well as a series of plays by colleagues that have received grants from the Beaumarchais Association of the French Author’s Society. Rossett has done English versions as well of Alain Decaux’s historical pageants (Chateau Blois Comes To Life and De Gaulle: the Man Who Said NO. As an actor, he has appeared in films of Marcel Carné, Woody Allen, and over 50 others.

The Specialty was first produced at Le Beaubourgeois, a restaurant in Paris, France, in October 1983.

“The poetry and tenderness of an Anouilh. Three meetings far apart in time define with a rare precision the churning of the Western world.” – Magazine Hebdo

“Light as a flaky pastry, sweet and perfumed as an apple tart.” – Le Parisien