'860' Broadway review — Billy Crystal rises from the ashes of a devastating loss

Read our review of 860 off Broadway, the new solo show written and performed by Billy Crystal about the loss of his home in the 2025 Palisades fires.

Summary

• Billy Crystal reflects on the loss of his home in the 2025 California wildfires in his solo show 860
• Crystal is a funny and moving storyteller whose fans will appreciate both his humor and his heart
• 860 is Crystal's second Broadway solo show after the Tony Award-winning 700 Sundays

Comedy is tragedy plus time, it’s said. Billy Crystal didn’t waste a second before writing 860, his new solo stage memoir. That’s surely because he’s achingly aware that life changes in a flash — a fact at the heart of this deeply personal show that’s brimming with laughs and all but guaranteed to bring tears.

The title marks the Chautauqua Blvd. address of his family’s beloved Pacific Palisades home of 46 years. It’s where he and his wife raised their daughters, Jennifer and Lindsay, and made countless memories. It was destroyed alongside nearly 7,000 other houses in the 2025 California wildfires.

The inferno is raging on the morning of January 7, when the show begins. He’s in the office. “It wasn’t a man cave,” he says. “It was a me cave.” It’s filled with family and career photos, movie clapboards, awards, and a lifetime of memorabilia. An alarm soon sounds, and Crystal cries, “Gotta go!”

We’re whisked down Memory Lane, essentially a personal and professional highlights reel. The structure makes logical, if bittersweet, sense. It’s his way to take stock of what he had and lost.

Flashing back to New York University, where he studied film and graduated in 1970, he recalls an “intense” professor, Martin Scorsese. “I don’t know whatever became of him,” Crystal quips. The same year, he married his Long Island high school sweetheart, Janice Goldfinger, and set out to pursue a dream “to be funny in front of strangers.” Done!

In rapid succession are milestone memories: an early stand-up breakthrough; an improbable yet enduring friendship with Muhammad Ali, who becomes Crystal’s champion against antisemitism; a “mahvelous” Saturday Night Live stint; hanging with Jack Nicholson; meeting Yankees hero Mickey Mantle; and forging unbreakable bonds with Rob Reiner and Robin Williams. Crystal’s wife and kids pop up regularly.

Director Scott Ellis’s straightforward and briskly paced staging is enhanced by Hana S. Kim and Kylee Loera’s time- and scene-setting videos and Marc Shaiman’s music. 860 arrives on Broadway 22 years after Crystal’s 700 Sundays, his Tony Award-winning solo piece about his late father. Like that work, this monologue motors on his Jewish pride, nostalgic storytelling, impeccable timing, affectionate impressions, and go-there goofiness. Watching him recreate his birth is unforgettable — and that cuts both ways.

Some vignettes land more decisively than others, but they all ring true. Along the way, he considers luck and fate, and he swats occasionally at the current U.S. president without naming him. He also seethes about first seeing his destroyed property via a TV news crew. It was “trespassing, not just on our property,” he says, “but on our souls.” Nothing funny in that.

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.

860 summary

Crystal’s one-man show 860, making its world premiere on Broadway, is an intimate reflection on the 46 years he and his family spent in their Pacific Palisades home, destroyed in the January 2025 California wildfires. Crystal blends personal memories and career stories to explore how love, friendship, and laughter can ease the ache of devastating loss.

What to expect at 860

Now 78, Billy Crystal famously rose to fame on Soap, starred in the hit movie rom-com When Harry Met Sally..., voiced Mike Wazowski in the Monsters Inc. franchise, hosted nine Oscars ceremonies, and has sealed his stature as a comedy legend.

Younger audience members may not already know all that, and the star understands. “For those of you who are not 65...” he says with a wink after explaining a reference that reaches back to the ’70s. But a good story, which Crystal tells, defies age.

Scenic designer Scott Pask’s near-mirror image of his home office puts us right where we need to be. Jen Schriever’s lighting lends drama and focus, as when a baseball gets the spotlight during a Yankees vignette.

860 runs 95 minutes with no intermission.

What audiences are saying about 860

On the review aggregator Show-Score, early theatregoers have expressed near-unanimous raves for the show: As of writing, the production boasts a 98% approval rating, averaged from 258 reviews. On Mezzanine, another theatre forum, audiences voiced mixed reactions.

• “Take a tissue! You’ll be laughing so hard, you’ll be crying!” - Show-Score user Charles G.
• “A must see play. Entertaining and informative. Spoken from the heart and connected to the audience.” - Show-Score user Joanne F.
• “Cozy, funny, a little overly sentimental at points.” - Mezzanine user Derek Kahle
• “Billy Crystal is truly a master of comedy and so genuine in his storytelling. A funny and touching one man show that is definitely worth checking out.” - Show-Score user Phantom of Broadway
• “It often felt too much like disjoined career flashbacks than a really compelling story … Very glad I saw it, even if it wasn’t perfect.” - Mezzanine user Jeffrey Rubel

Read more audience reviews of 860 on Show-Score.

Who should see 860

• Fans who’ve followed Billy Crystal over his long career on screen as a performer and a host know what to expect from him — and he delivers.
• Fans of 700 Sundays will enjoy Crystal's latest one-man show, and they'll have the added pleasure of seeing how it complements that earlier numerically named work.
• Theatregoers who enjoy solo stage memoirs will appreciate Crystal’s able approach to the storytelling.

Learn more about 860 on Broadway

Billy Crystal’s 860 is a funny and touching reminder that there’s truly no place like home.

Learn more and get 860 tickets on New York Theatre Guide. 860 is at the Imperial Theatre through January 3.

Photo credit: Billy Crystal in 860 on Broadway. (Photos by Avery Brunkus)