Now through May 10, 2015 HART presents a comedy which many consider Neil Simon’s masterpiece.

The autobiographical play is set in the 1930s and the action is seen through the eyes of young Eugene Morris Jerome. The play is one of the funniest and most touching of all of the Neil Simon works.

Neil Simon is the most successful playwright in theater history. At one point he had three hit plays running on Broadway simultaneously and throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s one hit followed another. He was part of a legendary group of writers who worked for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows in the 1950s that included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Selma Diamond.

Despite a truck load of awards and wealth Simon was not given the kind of respect as a writer that he deserved until he created Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1983. For the first time he drew from personal memories of the depression, and family life in the days leading up to World War II. Brighton Beach would be followed by Biloxi Blues which drew upon his memories of boot camp, and then Broadway Bound which recreated the Sid Caesar days of early television.

In 1991 Simon wrote what would become his most celebrated play, Lost in Yonkers. The play has the same spirit and feel as the Brighton Beach trilogy, and it finally won him the Pulitzer Prize.

Brighton Beach opened at the Alvin Theater on Broadway and ran for over 1200 performances and launched the career of a young Matthew Broderick, who would win a Tony Award and then go on to star in the film version of Biloxi Blues.

HART produced Brighton Beach in the Strand Theatre in 1993 under the direction of Wanda Taylor. That production marked the kickoff of the fund drive to build the Performing Arts Center at the Shelton House. Jump forward twenty-two years, and Taylor is directing again, this time with Hogan McLamb, Stephen Gonya, Jan Welch, Holly Cope, Dakota Mann, Anna Denson and Lily Bowen.

If You Go: Brighton Beach Memoirs, May 1, 2, 8, 9 at 7:30 and May 3 & 10 at 3 p.m. Tickets are available by calling the HART Box Office at (828) 456-6322 Tues-Sat. from 1-5 p.m., or at www.harttheatre.org. Performances are at the HART Theatre, 250 Pigeon St. in Waynesville.