The trilogy tells the story of Eugene Jerome from his adolescence in
New York City, to his time spent in
basic training in
Biloxi, Mississippi during
World War II, and finally to the beginning of his career as an aspiring comedy writer. The trilogy is a semi-autobiographical account of Neil Simon's own early life and career. In an interview in 1986, Simon said: "
Brighton Beach was going to be another singular play....Again, I still hadn't thought of a trilogy. But I decided to take Eugene the next step chronologically in my life, which was the army. But even after I wrote 'Biloxi Blues', I still didn't think about a sequel, because if it turned out to be a bomb, why would one want to do a sequel? So I just waited to see what would happen. Well, Biloxi enjoyed enormous success, and I thought of a third part".
Stage Brighton Beach Memoirs premiered on
Broadway on March 22, 1983;
Biloxi Blues premiered on
Broadway on March 28, 1985 and
Broadway Bound premiered on
Broadway on December 4, 1986.
Film Brighton Beach Memoirs and
Biloxi Blues were made into films, while
Broadway Bound was adapted as a made-for-TV movie. On screen the role of Eugene Jerome was played by
Jonathan Silverman in
Brighton Beach Memoirs (he also played Stanley in the film version of
Broadway Bound), ==References==