It was a great day for Broadway when the New York Fire Department discovered violations in an uptown auditorium. The building was condemned and the...

It was a great day for Broadway when the New York Fire Department discovered violations in an uptown auditorium. The building was condemned and the tenants were forced to vacate, which meant that Jess Simple and all the warm, funny and foolish characters connected with Langston Hughes' comedy with music would have to find a new home. The new home was found on Broadway - the Playhouse - and Simply Heavenly opened there on August 20, 1957. Simply Heavenly is based on "Simple Takes a Wife" and other "Simple" Stories by the celebrated poet Langston Hughes. The action is concerned with Jess Simple, an honest, easy-going man trying to raise enough money to divorce a wife he does not love in order to marry his new love, Joyce Lane; his experiences with the neighborhood characters and his unsuccessful attempts to escape a woman who is bent on leading him astray. In short, Simply Heavenly is about many aspects of Harlem - its jazz, its humor and the universal problem of paying the rent and buying a shot of gin.