Biloxi Blues, the second play in Neil Simon's autobiographical Eugene Trilogy, officially opened on Broadway March 28, 1985, following previews that began March 19. The play was performed, appropriately, at the Neil Simon Theatre.
Sandwiched between Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983) and Broadway Bound (1986), Biloxi Blues finds Eugene Morris Jerome, a character very much like Marvin Neil Simon, in basic training for the army in World War II in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Directed by frequent Simon collaborator Gene Saks, the opening-night cast starred Matthew Broderick as Eugene Morris Jerome. Broderick had also opened Brighton Beach Memoirs, winning his first Tony as Eugene Jerome. He would go on to star in other Simon plays on Broadway, including The Odd Couple (2005) and Plaza Suite (2022).
The cast of Biloxi Blues also included Randall Edwards as Rowena, Barry Miller as Arnold Epstein, Penelope Ann Miller as Daisy Hannigan, Matt Mulhern as Joseph Wykowski, Alan Ruck as Don Carney, Bill Sadler as Sgt. Merwin J. Toomey, Geoffrey Sharp as James Hennesey, and Brian Tarantina as Roy Selridge. (Broderick's successors included Zach Galligan, Bruce Norris, William Ragsdale, and Jonathan Silverman; Silverman would subsequently open Broadway Bound as Eugene.)
In his review for the New York Times, Frank Rich wrote, "When a playwright is writing honestly, he writes in his own voice鈥攁nd Mr. Simon's honest voice is not the official, middlebrow tone he's adopted over the last decade but the comic vernacular of his first hits. In Biloxi Blues, we can feel Mr. Simon's exhilaration at giving that voice full vent again, and we can be doubly grateful that Mr. Broderick is the instrument of its expression. Not since Fran莽ois Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud have a popular storyteller and his public alter ego been so ideally matched."
The production would earn three 1985 Tony nominations, winning in all categories: Best Play, Best Featured Actor in a Play for Barry Miller, and Best Direction of a Play for Gene Saks.
Biloxi Blues played a total of 12 previews and 524 regular performances at the Neil Simon before closing June 28, 1986.
Broderick, Penelope Ann Miller, and Matt Mulhern went on to repeat their roles in the 1988 Mike Nichols-directed film version of Biloxi Blues, which also featured Christopher Walken.
In an for the New York Times, Simon spoke about why he was compelled to write the autobiographical plays, explaining, "I think you discover things by writing鈥攊t can be therapeutic鈥攁nd I wanted to know how this extremely shy, not enormously well-educated boy came to do what I consider a very hard thing to do鈥攚rite plays. I wanted to see how I became the person I am. I seem to be, in my own mind, a very unlikely candidate for success. It's like when I see Joan Collins on the Johnny Carson show, I say, 'Yeah, she was made to be on the Johnny Carson show.' But when I see myself there, I say, 'What are you doing there? You belong in the Bronx playing stickball.' I don't feel like that all the time鈥擨 can go to an opening night and deal with all the cameras, but then I go home and I'm depressed somehow, because I don't understand how this all happened."
Although Biloxi Blues has never been revived on Broadway, in 2009 there was an attempt to stage revivals of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound in repertory under the title of "The Neil Simon Plays." David Cromer was scheduled to direct both plays, although only Brighton Beach would end up opening, playing 25 previews and nine regular performances at the Nederlander Theatre. The cast included Laurie Metcalf as Kate Jerome, Dennis Boutsikaris as Jack Jerome, Santino Fontana as Stanley Jerome, Jessica Hecht as Blanche, Gracie Bea Lawrence as Laurie, Noah Robbins as Eugene Jerome, and Alexandra Socha as Nora. Much of the same cast was scheduled to be part of Broadway Bound, but with the quick closure of Brighton Beach, the other production was canceled.
Simon also won a Best Play Tony for Lost in Yonkers in 1991 and a Best Author (Play) Tony for The Odd Couple in 1965. In 1975, the late playwright received a Special Tony Award for "overall contribution to the theatre." Lost in Yonkers was also awarded the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Simon's numerous other Broadway titles include Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys, The Good Doctor, Little Me, Chapter Two, They're Playing Our Song, Plaza Suite, The Goodbye Girl, Sweet Charity, 45 Seconds From Broadway, The Dinner Party, Proposals, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Jake's Women, Rumors, Fools, I Ought to Be in Pictures, and Promises, Promises.
Learn what other theatre milestones happened on March 28 by visiting the 半岛体育 Vault.
Look back at the original Broadway production of Biloxi Blues in the gallery below.
Matthew Broderick and Randall Edwards in Biloxi Blues
Matthew Broderick and Penelope Ann Miller in Biloxi Blues
Matthew Broderick in Biloxi Blues
Matthew Broderick and Bill Sadler in Biloxi Blues
