Opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on December 17, 1980. Closed October 16, 1983 after 1,181 performances — 2.8 years. 5 Tony Awards in 1981, including Best Play; 3 Drama Desk Awards in 1981, including Outstanding Play Amadeus is a 1979 play by Peter Shaffer which gives a fictional account of the lives of composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, imagining a rivalry between the two at the court of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. It was inspired by Alexander Pushkin's short 1830 play Mozart and Salieri, which Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used in 1897 as the libretto for an opera of the same name. Wiki link