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Thomas Meehan (writer)

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Occupation
  
Writer

Name
  
Thomas Meehan

Nationality
  
United States

Role
  
Writer

Alma mater
  
Hamilton College

Education
  
Hamilton College

Works with
  
Mel Brooks


Thomas Meehan (writer) imagesplaybillcomphototmtmeehan200jpg

Born
  
Thomas Edward Meehan August 14, 1929 Ossining, New York, U.S. (
1929-08-14
)

Notable work(s)
  
Annie The Producers Hairspray

Movies
  
Annie, Spaceballs, Hairspray, The Producers, To Be or Not to Be, Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, One Magic Christmas

TV shows
  
Spaceballs: The Animated Series

Awards
  
Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical

Plays
  
Annie, Hairspray, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Rocky the Musical

Similar People
  
Martin Charnin, Charles Strouse, Mark O'Donnell, Mel Brooks, Scott Wittman

Book writer thomas meehan talks about rocky on broadway


Thomas Edward Meehan (August 14, 1929 – August 21, 2017) was an American writer. He was best known for writing the books for the musicals Annie, The Producers, and Hairspray. Meehan also wrote the books for the musicals Young Frankenstein and Cry-Baby and co-wrote the books for Elf: The Musical and Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin.

Contents

He received the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times—in 1977, in 2001 (shared with Mel Brooks), and in 2003 (shared with Mark O'Donnell).

Early life

Meehan was born in Ossining, New York, but grew up in Suffern, New York. His father, Thomas, was a businessman and his mother, Helen Cecilia O’Neill, was an emergency room nurse. He graduated from Hamilton College.

Career

Meehan moved to New York at age 24, and worked at The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town".

In 1972, Meehan was asked to work on a musical based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. At first, Meehan was skeptical to accept the offer, but eventually accepted the offer after reading the strip. Meehan wrote Annie with Charles Strouse, who wrote the music. The production took five years to get to Broadway. Once the musical ran in 1977, it ran for 2,377 performances.

Additional credits include Ain't Broadway Grand; Oh, Kay!; Bombay Dreams, a musical adaptation of I Remember Mama; and Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, which was subsequently reworked and re-staged Off-Broadway as Annie Warbucks. He also wrote the libretto to the opera 1984.

In addition, Meehan was a long-time contributor of humor to The New Yorker; an Emmy Award-winning writer of television comedy; and a collaborator on a number of screenplays, including Mel Brooks' Spaceballs; a remake of To Be or Not to Be; and One Magic Christmas. Meehan went on to work with Brooks on other projects on Broadway, perhaps the most notable of their adaptations was The Producers, based on the 1967 film. The show became a Broadway hit that dominated the 2001 Tony Awards and ran for more than 2,500 performances.

Meehan followed that with Hairspray, an adaptation based of John Waters’s 1988 film of the same name. It opened in 2002 and ran for 2,642 performances. He co-wrote the book, with Bob Martin, for Elf the Musical. He co-wrote the book for the production of the musical Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin which ran at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2010 and premiered on Broadway in 2012. In 2011 he revised the book originally written by Peter Stone for the Off-Broadway musical Death Takes a Holiday with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston.

In 2012, Meehan wrote the book from the original screenplay by Sylvester Stallone for the musical Rocky. The show premiered in Hamburg in 2012, before transferring to Broadway in 2014.

Meehan held the distinction of being the only writer to have written three Broadway shows that ran for more than 2,000 performances. Reflecting on his work in an interview with The New York Observer in 1999, Meehan said "I wrote stories that were serious, very somber, trying to be in the style of William Faulkner. My career has always been that every time I try something really serious, it's no good, but if I try to be funny, then it works".

Death

Meehan died on August 21, 2017, at his home in Manhattan, New York City, at the age of 88. The cause was cancer. Five months prior to his death, Meehan had undergone surgery, which later caused his health to deteriorate.

Meehan was survived by two children from his first marriage with Karen Meehan, which ended in divorce, and two other children with Carolyn Wagstaff Capstick, whom he married in 1988 and with whom he remained until his death.

In reaction to his death, Mel Brooks wrote on Twitter: "Stunned by the news that my friend/co-writer Tom Meehan has died. I’ll miss his sweetness & talent. We have all lost a giant of the theatre." Similar to Brooks, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda released a statement on Twitter stating: "RIP to Thomas Meehan, one of the best around."

References

Thomas Meehan (writer) Wikipedia