Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon.[1]
The play is a coming-of-age comedy[2] focused on the main character of Eugene Morris Jerome, a Jewish teenager[3] from a Polish immigrant family.[4] It is set in September 1937 in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York[5] during The Great Depression.[6] According to Simon, the play tells its story "through the eyes of a 15-year-old boy who is writing his memoirs—which is what I did when I was 15".[1]
Brighton Beach Memoirs premiered in December 1982. In 1983, it received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play. Brighton Beach Memoirs is the first play in what is known as Simon's Eugene trilogy,[7] and was followed by Biloxi Blues (1984) and Broadway Bound (1986). The play was adapted into a film of the same name in 1986.
