Billy Crystal is going back to Broadway, and back to the house he lost. Previews begin Oct. 1 at the Imperial Theatre for "860," a new solo show the 78-year-old actor and comedian wrote and will perform for twelve weeks, with an official opening set for Oct. 21 and a run through Jan. 3, 2027.
The title is the street number of the Pacific Palisades home where Crystal's family lived for 46 years before it burned in the wildfires that tore through Los Angeles in January 2025. According to New York Theatre Guide, those fires killed 31 people and destroyed roughly 13,000 residential properties across the Palisades and Eaton burn areas, with cleanup work stretching on for months afterward.
860 was the address of the home we lost in the Palisades fires. We lived there for 46 years. I invite you to come inside 860 and I'll tell you all the funny and touching things that happened there, not only in my career but to our family. It's a joyous and heartfelt visit, about how with the love of family and friends and your inner strength, you can get through tough times.
— Billy Crystal
A Familiar Stage, a New Kind of Show
Crystal is no stranger to turning his own life into a Broadway evening. His 2004 solo show "700 Sundays," adapted from his memoir about growing up in a jazz-loving Long Island family, won him a Drama Desk Award; he returned in 2022 to originate a role in the musical "Mr. Saturday Night," which picked up Tony nominations that year. "860" is directed by Scott Ellis, a nine-time Tony nominee, and runs an intermission-free 100 minutes, with tickets starting at $103, according to an Associated Press report on the production.
Crystal has spoken publicly about the fires before. He attended the FireAid benefit concert in late January 2025 reportedly still wearing the clothes he had evacuated in — a detail that has circulated widely since as a measure of how close the losses hit for a performer more associated onstage with warmth than with grief.
What to Expect
Early billing for "860" promises the mix Crystal has built a career on: jokes threaded through loss, and a showbiz life recounted for laughs before the show pivots to something rawer. Producers, including Crystal's own Face Productions alongside his wife Janice, longtime collaborator Larry Magid and Shubert Organization chief James L. Nederlander, are betting that the appetite for Crystal telling his own story again, on his own terms, hasn't faded since "700 Sundays" closed nearly two decades ago.
Previews will offer the first real test of that bet. With three weeks to find the show's shape in front of paying audiences before the Oct. 21 opening, Crystal and director Scott Ellis have time to do what "700 Sundays" did before it: turn one comedian's family stories into an evening built to sell out.