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Brownstein: Montreal has a chapter in witty raconteur Adam Gopnik's New York stories

29 0
07.07.2026

His one-man show, a confessional, is called Adam Gopnik’s New York, exploring all facets of the award-winning New Yorker magazine writer’s life, from his fascination with Central Park to the city’s runaway rat population to his failed attempts at psychoanalysis — “the most unsuccessful in the history of therapy.”

But Gopnik’s adventure originates in Montreal, where the McGill University grad grew up and picked up a neurosis or two, not to mention a lifelong obsession with the Habs. Gopnik still insists: “Montreal is really my hometown.”

So it’s only fitting that the much-acclaimed Adam Gopnik’s New York — produced by Steve Martin and Tony Award winner James L. Nederlander — will hit town at the Segal Centre for a one-night stand on Sept. 8. Tickets go on sale Tuesday.

The show first opened to sold-out audiences at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 2025 and continues to draw full houses across North America and abroad. It played, sandwiched between Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Othello, this past weekend at Ontario’s Stratford Festival with the title Talk Therapy — which was what Gopnik originally called the play.

“Adam Gopnik’s New York was meeting with a certain resistance from some Canadian bookers,” he says.

A 40-year staffer at the New Yorker with three National Magazine Awards and more than a dozen books to his credit, Gopnik brings overachievement to a whole new level. And with a handful of plays to his name, he has also become a much sought-after witty raconteur in the tradition of the late, great Spalding Gray.

Adam Gopnik’s New York came about as a result of his regular breakfast conversations with his longtime buddy Martin, who urged him to bring a collection of his life stories to the stage.

“I told Steve that, in fact, I had done a one-man show about my life, but he told me: ‘No, not a show........

© Montreal Gazette