Perfect Crime is the longest running non-musical play in New York theatrical history, either on or Off-Broadway.

Written by actor/director Warren Manzi, it was originally optioned for Broadway in 1980, (making Manzi, then 25 and starring as Mozart on Broadway in Amadeus, the youngest American ever to have a play optioned for Broadway.) Manzi set the play aside after some disagreements with the initial producer and went to LA to write screenplays (most notably, the original screenplay for Clue).

Several years later, while Artistic Director of The Actors Collective, a New York based not-for-profit theatre company, Manzi reworked his play and it opened on April 18,1987, at the Courtyard Playhouse, 39 Grove Street, as an Equity showcase production. A maverick attorney/aspiring producer who was familiar with Manzi's work formed a production company, Poet Star Visual, DBA The Methuen Company and converted the showcase to an Off-Broadway production, which remained at the Courtyard Playhouse for several months, through August 2, 1987. Perfect Crime then moved to the Second Stage and played there August - October 1987. The show then moved to the 47th Street Theater (October 1987-December 1987) and then to Intar (January - April 1988), and then to the Harold Clurman Theater, where the play remained May 1988 through August 1990. Perfect Crime then moved back to the 47th Street Theater (August - December 1990) and then to Theater Four on West 55th Street where it played from January 1991 through September 1993. Perfect Crime then moved back to the 47th Street Theater (September 1993 - January 1994) then finally found a more permanent home in a converted burlesque house, renamed the Duffy Theater, at 1553 Broadway at 46th Street. In May of 2005, the Duffy Theater moved to a brand new space, at 1627 Broadway at 50th Street, still making it the only Off-Broadway Theater that is right on Broadway!

Perfect Crime originally ran three hours, and playwright Manzi re-wrote and re-worked the play extensively over seven or eight years, with actors sometimes getting rewrites for Act Two at intermission! Perfect Crime has been published by Samuel French and the play has been produced extensively all over the country and abroad.

The cast has changed many times over the years, but leading lady Catherine Russell has remained with the show from the very first performance, and has missed only four of the (now) nearly 7500 performances.