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The Ritz is a play by Terrence McNally. Actress Rita Moreno won a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Broadway production, which she and many others of the original cast reprised in a 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester.

The farce is set in a gay bathhouse in Manhattan, where unsuspecting heterosexual Cleveland businessman Gaetano Proclo has taken refuge from his homicidal mobster brother-in-law, Carmine Vespucci. As Gaetano battles to preserve both his life and his heterosexuality, he stumbles across an assortment of deranged characters, including a rabid chubby chaser, go-go boys, a squeaky-voiced detective, and Googie Gomez, a third-rate Puerto Rican entertainer with visions of Broadway glory who mistakes him for a famous producer . . . and who he mistakes for a man in drag. Further complications arise when Gaetano's wife Vivian tracks him down and jumps to all the wrong conclusions about his sexual preferences.

After ten previews, the Broadway production, directed by Robert Drivas, opened on January 20, 1975 at the Longacre Theatre, where it ran for 398 performances. The cast included Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, F. Murray Abraham, Stephen Collins, and George Dzundza.

Moreno won the Tony and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her performance, and the play received a Drama Desk nomination as Outstanding New American Play.

Weston, Moreno, Stiller, and Abraham all reprised their stage roles in the 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester. Also in the cast were Kaye Ballard and Treat Williams. The film, Weston, and Moreno all received Golden Globe nominations in the comedy category.

The first Broadway revival of The Ritz previewed for two weeks but then closed after a single regular performance at Xenon, formerly Henry Miller's Theatre, on May 2, 1983.

A new limited-run Broadway revival produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company and directed by Joe Mantello began previews on September 15, 2007 at Studio 54. The cast includes Rosie Perez as Googie Gomez, Kevin Chamberlin as Gaetano Proclo and Ryan Idol as one the bathhouse patrons. The production is scheduled to close on December 9.

• Continental Baths

• The Ritz at Internet Broadway Database
• http://www.bathhouseaddict.com/Bathhouses/TheRitzBathhouse.html