His translations introduced the English to Jean Anouilh, a French dramatist whom they came to like much better than himself.

ECONOMIST: Christopher Fry

In the two decades since his humor took center stage, Ives is now a playwright who dives into failed plays or musicals and fixes them, whether they're a stage version of the Irving Berlin film "White Christmas, " a French farce about marital mayhem from the early 1900s, or a work by a 17th-century French dramatist.

WSJ: Playwright David Ives finds his timing perfectly