THE NEIL SIMON PLAYS Update: 'Brighton Beach' Will Close 11/1, 'Broadway Bound' Halted

BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS, the first of THE Neil Simon PLAYS will close Sunday, November 1st. Directed by David Cromer, BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS opened on Sunday, October 25th at the Nederlander Theatre (208 West 41st Street).

Brighton Beach Memoirs will have played 9 performances and 25 previews.

BROADWAY BOUND, which was scheduled to join BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS in repertory on November 18th, 2009, has been canceled. 

The leading producers of the Broadway revivals released a brief statement this morning to The New York Times about their decision to close the Neil Simon play tomorrow - just a week after it opened - and to halt plans next month to mount the companion play.

The statement from producers Emanuel Azenberg and Ira Pittelman is as follows:

"A lot of nice people on stage and off will be out of work and a lot of good partners and investors will have lost a great deal of money. They all deserve better. It makes us sad."

Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound were two of the longest running Broadway plays of the 1980s. The works ushered in a new era of appreciation for Neil Simon, with praise for the playwright's hilarious and poignant account of his adolescence, early career and family life in New York in the 1930s and 1940s.

Brighton Beach Memoirs originally opened on March 27, 1983 at the Alvin Theatre and played for 1,299 performances. (During the run of Brighton Beach Memoirs, the Alvin Theatre was renamed The Neil Simon Theatre). Broadway Bound opened on December 4, 1986 at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it played for 756 performances.

Brighton Beach Memoirs stars Laurie Metcalf (Kate Jerome) and Dennis Boutsikaris (Jack Jerome) with Santino Fontana (Stanley Jerome), Jessica Hecht (Blanche), Gracie Bea Lawrence (Laurie), Noah Robbins (Eugene Jerome) and Alexandra Socha (Nora).

Broadway Bound was to star Laurie Metcalf (Kate Jerome) and Dennis Boutsikaris (Jack Jerome) with Santino Fontana (Stanley Jerome), Jessica Hecht (Blanche), Josh Grisetti (Eugene Jerome) and Allan Miller (Ben).

Brighton Beach Memoirs centers on young Jewish teen Eugene Morris Jerome and his extended family living in a crowded home in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn in the late 1930s: his overworked father, Jack; overbearing mother, Kate; his older brother Stanley; Kate's widowed sister Blanche and her daughters, Nora and Laurie. As Eugene spends his time daydreaming about a baseball career, he must also cope with his family's troubles, his awkward discovery of the opposite sex and his developing identity as a writer.

In Broadway Bound, it's the late 1940s and Eugene and Stanley have started their careers as professional comedy writers. But when the brothers use their home life in Brighton Beach as inspiration for a radio comedy skit, the Jerome family may never be the same.

Scenic design is by John Lee Beatty, costume design is by Jane Greenwood, lighting design is by Brian MacDevitt and sound design is by Josh Schmidt and Fitz Patton. Hair and wig design is by Tom Watson.

THE Neil Simon PLAYS are produced by Ira Pittelman, Max Cooper, Jeffrey Sine, Scott Delman, Ruth Hendel, Roy Furman, Ben Sprecher/Wendy Federman, Scott Landis and Emanuel Azenberg.

Photo by Joan Marcus