Billy Crystal on Using Theatre, and Humor, to Process Grief

How do you rebuild your life after a massive tragedy while still finding the humor within the grief? That question sits at the heart of Billy Crystal’s new Broadway show, 860. 

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Crystal—best known for his roles in When Harry Met Sally, Monsters Inc., The Princess Bride, and City Slickers—has previously graced the boards of Broadway in his autobiographical solo show 700 Sundays in 2004 (which earned him a Tony Award), the remount of 700 Sundays in 2014, and most recently in the musical adaptation of his 1992 film Mr. Saturday Night in 2022.

Crystal returns to Broadway October 1 with 860, a brand-new solo show about loss, resilience, and finding a way forward after losing the home he had shared with his family for 46 years in the Palisades fires. After the first day of rehearsals for the show’s upcoming Main Stem run, Crystal sat down with Playbill to talk about turning an unimaginable loss into something deeply personal, relatable, and, yes, funny.

860 runs at the Imperial until January 3, 2027.

How’s it going, Billy?
Billy Crystal: It’s going good. Today was the first day of rehearsal. I just walked in. It’s very exciting.

We have done seven workshops to get [860] up on its feet and see what we had. We really were pleased with the last five in particular. Once we got past the reading stage and got in front of audiences, it really took its shape beautifully. Today was after a little break. It was great to revisit and get going.

You’re going to be in the Imperial, which is where you did your second run of 700 Sundays. Does the project feel more like a sequel to 700 Sundays or an entirely new project for you?
It’s a new project. 700 Sundays was so much about me as a young boy falling in love with comedy, becoming a comedian, and dreaming about the future and so on. Then, leaving the house and moving to California in the latter parts of 700 Sundays. This show, once it started to percolate after the fires, I realized that the things that I dreamed about in 700 came true at 860. That was the street address of the house. So, in that way, it’s kind of a sequel, a continuation. I don’t like the word “sequel” because it’s more of a continuing story framed by the tragedy of the fires.

Can you kind of walk me through your experience with the fires, having to evacuate and having to leave the home that you’ve had for so many years? 
Well, that’s all in the play. It was a beautiful, typical great day out there, post-New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day. We woke up to the news helicopters hovering overhead, planes sounding, turning on the TV and seeing what was happening, and phone calls from people: “We’re leaving. Are you guys okay?” Then, seeing friends on TV being evacuated, just by chance, saying, “We better get out of here,” packing up and hastily leaving. It was very tense, as it all was getting smokier and a little bit scarier. 

Then, watching it happen that night, we were at my daughter’s house. We got the news that everything was gone, not just our house, but basically the entire town—Altadena, Malibu, and the Coast Highway. The level of devastation to witness on television was akin to watching the towers come down on 9/11. An entire community was gone. It spared nobody: schools, churches, synagogues. I think over 50 people were killed, 12 in the Palisades. So, it was an enormous, empty feeling to experience, which has gotten better by doing the show.

700 was dealing with the loss of my father and eventually, my mother. Becoming an orphan in your early ’50s, which happens to us as we grow older. Just the way life works. Taking the lessons that I learned from them, standing on my own two feet, and becoming a man–that’s what 700 was.

[860] is 46 years of a family with young children coming into this house, and then losing it while they’re middle-aged people themselves. Janice and I are older, of course. Learning what’s really important in life, and learning once again how to deal with tragedy and overcome it, trying to stay optimistic, and once again standing on our own two feet. For us, our own four feet. Moving forward with your life, coupled with the loss of a lot of friends that year.

So, how do you approach that and make it entertaining? How do you make it relevant to others, be humorous, and sometimes flat-out really funny? And also, be very honest with the questions that have been put to me at this point in my life that I wasn’t really ready to want to grapple with, but you have to. I think that’s the power of 860.

For me, it’s very cleansing to get up, talk to the audience, and find the commonality. More than likely, their house hasn’t burned down, but they’ve lost something. Whether it be a parent or a friend; we lose things. How do you recover? How do you find the humor in things? How do you find the life when there is none? That’s a thrill to be able to talk to them like a friend in 860. It’s very informal. It’s really a conversation that I have with the audience. All right, let’s talk about life, not just mine, but yours at the same time.

Is writing a tool that you usually use when you’re experiencing very heavy emotions and tragedy?
Honestly, it always has been. I realized the other day when we were talking about this. In 2025, I spoke at seven memorials; two of them were public, at the Oscars for the Reiners. Two of the others were for my manager of 45 years; I wrote his eulogy for the Hollywood Reporter. And then the same week, another great close friend. So, it just kept happening over and over and over.

I realized the first time I experienced loss, I wrote a eulogy for my father. I was 15, and that was the first one I did. I remember it helping me then, and it’s helped me now to put order to the chaos. It’s not something that I like to do. But when it happens, it’s how I can help myself get through things and help other people get through things. Sometimes it’s been very public. When Robin [Williams] died, I eulogized for him on the Emmys. [Muhammad] Ali’s funeral, I was asked to be one of the eulogists for him. 

So, sometimes it’s very public, but other times the eulogy happens inside you. You try to put an order to the sorrow.

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Has writing and the rebuilding helped you find a new purpose? Does it help you move forward?
Yeah, and my family has been fantastic. Also, if you lead by example. We watched it all happen on television together, including my grandchildren, who are 23, 20, 16, and 13. So watching with them, you feel a responsibility to be strong for them, to show them it’s going to be okay. We’ll be okay. And if Janice and I cried in front of them, we cried in front of them. If we wept, the next step of crying, if we did that, we did. If we held on to each other, we did. It’s about love and commitment, and what marriage is, and that we have. It takes strength to get through hard times. 

You’re not going to have what we had, hopefully—what we have all just been through. You’re going to have challenges. It’s never going to be easy. So when things happen, know that you have this inside you. You have this power. One motto I always had with my two girls: don’t give up your power. I’ve always said that to them, and don’t give it up to somebody else. Don’t let them take that away from you. You are strong. You’re stronger than maybe you even know. And strength will come to you when you need it. And I think that was a great lesson for all of us.

Were you able to save some things through everything? Some more sentimental things?
No, a few tiny little things, which are actually really good moments in the show. What’s unique about 860 is I, from the moment the plane started flying overhead, I started filming things on my phone. So it’s all very informal. It’s very my point of view, you’re in the moments with me

When we go to the house, the wreckage of it. When we experience it, you’re with me. You’re seeing what I’m seeing. As we were going, I kept doing it. It’s almost like I was making a documentary. I didn’t think I was going to make a show out of it yet, but once I saw these things. I started writing, and the writing took me out of the horror. It just kept growing and growing until I felt, oh my God, look what I have here.

All right. Now, what’s the next step? The next step was to get it into shape. Then meet someone terrific like James Nederlander, who produced Mr. Saturday Night. I said I have something. I told him what it was. He said, “I want to do this, let’s do this together.” James and I met with Scott Ellis, who’s a wonderful director. Showed him what I had, all this video. I sort of put it into a shape and wrote a bunch of narrative that went with it. He said, “I’m in if you want me.” We’ve been a great team. He’s been fantastic. We’ve added some great visual artists. So the show is big in that way. It’s big emotionally. It’s big funny. It’s a big heart, but it’s also it’s a theatrical experience.

And your dad was also a person who documented absolutely everything. Is that like a skill you picked up from your dad?
Yeah, he was always was with the camera, and always had so many great moments that unfortunately just disappeared that day. We had home movies of Mickey Mantle in his prime, and all of the family events. Some we were smart enough to put on the cloud. So, we were able to retrieve them. The physical, actual little eight millimeters are gone, but some we were able to save. Thankfully, we had said, “Let’s put them on the cloud so we have them. So we have some things, physical things, a couple really tiny little things. It’s amazing that it was reduced to powder. It’s crazy. It’s crazy.

You have such a connection to Broadway. What’s it like to be back over here?
It’s just such a great place, and the fact that it’s back in the Imperial, which I had an attachment to for a couple of reasons. Besides doing 700 there, I saw the last performance of Fiddler on the Roof there with Zero Mostel, who was a friend of my uncle’s.

My uncle had an art gallery, and they were great friends of very similar types. He would show Zero’s watercolors. He arranged for my mom and me, after my dad died, to see Fiddler on the Roof with Zero. He arranged for us to go backstage to meet the great man.

So, we go back. We went backstage, and they said, “This is his room. He was expecting us. Knocked on the door. He met us at the door. Said some very encouraging things like, ‘I hear that you want to be a performer.” I was 15 at the time, or 16 maybe. “Hopefully, someday we will do something together, young man. He gave me a hug. “Good luck to you, and I look forward to hearing about you.” Something like that. 

Then when we got to the Imperial to load in for 700, they said, your dressing room is gonna be that one. I went, “Oh my God, was that Zero Mostel’s dressing room?” And the guy said, “More than likely.” I remembered the steps up to where it was. It was the same dressing room. So, I had the same dressing room that Zero did from Fiddler, so in some way we were doing something together.

You’ve done movies, television, and Broadway. What makes doing theatre such a different art form?
Because you get it right as it’s happening. People want to get away from the lot in their lives for an hour and a half, two hours, and it’s so magical. I used to love how busy 44th Street, 45th Street, and all the streets are. Then it’s time to get in; everyone hustles, and then suddenly the streets are quiet. Everybody’s inside, taken away from their lives, just to get into someone else’s life that’s on stage. There’s something so great about that. As opposed to when you get a movie to do—if it’s funny, you don’t find out it’s funny until months after you do it. Hopefully, the editors made it funnier. With Broadway, you get it instantly. Then, you get to go home, rest, and get it again the next night and the next night and the next night and the next night.

It’s exhausting like crazy. You have to protect yourself from getting sick. I don’t have an understudy. I’ve got to show up. It’s a pretty amazing experience, but I’m also a lot older than I was then. I’m getting in really great shape to get to this grind of seven, and then eight shows a week. There’s nothing like it. There’s nothing that matches it.