Newlyweds' new flat inspires Plainview playwright's 'The Bohemians'

Many of us would like to forget our first apartment. Claude Solnik of Plainview has commemorated one, with a play inspired by the Brooklyn flat where he and his wife lived soon after they met. "The Bohemians," a comedy about a young couple not unlike Solnik and his wife, Fanny, opens Thursday at Theater for the New City in Manhattan.

The Solniks met at a holiday party at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan and married in the early '90s. Broadway World calls the play a "Neil Simon-esque romp with some of the charm" of Paul Mazursky's 1976 movie, "Next Stop Greenwich Village." The couple in the play, Becka and Scott, are thrilled with their new apartment in the rundown Waldorf Towers, but when their parents help them move in and notice a couple of drug deals, things get wacky as they try to convince them to find safer lodgings. 

"This is the first pure comedy I've written," says Solnik, who says he laughs more than anyone at rehearsals. He's the author of a number of plays, among them "A Walk on the Beach" and "Victoria Woodhull."

Tickets for "The Bohemians," which runs through Dec. 22, are $15-$18. Call 212-254-1109 or go to theaterforthenewcity.net.