Manhattanites Christine Baranski and George Grizzard (photos by Henry Leutwyler).

They are currently hard at work refining the script for Regrets Only, which Ashley describes as a play about love, friendship and marriage in many combinations. In discussing their work together, Ashley emphasizes the comfortable fluidity of his and Rudnick’s roles in the rehearsal room, where they freely share ideas about possible rewrites and staging. Rudnick is an avid rewriter, and in the thick of the Regrets Only rehearsal process new pages and lines emerge daily.

“Often with a writer you’re trying to drag a rewrite out of them and they are defending every comma and semi-colon,” says Ashley. “Whereas Paul is so game to try new things, I sometimes have to say: let me rehearse it first, I think it’s really good writing—let’s just try it! Which is a fantastic position to be in.”

They begin each day around the table looking over any new material, and Ashley says handing around the rewrites each morning is “like Christmas.” Whether it’s honing one of his razor-sharp jokes or tweaking a scene to clarify a character’s arc, Rudnick has worked tirelessly with Ashley and an especially game cast to get it just right. 

When asked what appeals to him about Rudnick’s plays, Ashley points to the unique combination of free-wheeling humor and prescient political relevance in the writing. “Paul has an amazing ability, when he sits down to write a play, to sense what the culture is going to need to talk about in a year and a half when that play is actually onstage.” Ashley particularly admires the writer’s ability to tackle a political moment without ending up pedantic or preachy, saying, “it’s a unique trick of landing on a subject gently.”