Opened at the Ahmanson Theatre on March 27, 1983. Closed May 11, 1986 after 1,299 performances — 3.1 years. A Tony Award in 1983 Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon. The play is a coming of age comedy focused on the main character of Eugene Morris Jerome, a Jewish teenager from a Polish immigrant family. It is set in September 1937 in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, during the Great Depression. 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". Wiki link