Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Thomas Meehan, R. I. P.

Playbill: He is the only creative to have written the books for three shows that ran more than 2,000 performances on Broadway: the aforementioned Annie (2,377 performances), The Producers in 2001 alongside Mel Brooks (2,502 performances), and Hairspray in 2002, which he wrote with the late Mark O’Donnell (2,642 performances). He earned Tonys for all three shows.

5 comments:

Jeff Meyerson said...

I saw them all, and while they were each entertaining in its own way, I wouldn't rank any of them near the top of the list. (Not that it was the fault of the book, in any case.) Frankly, THE PRODUCERS was one of the biggest disappointments I ever had in the theater. Having loved the movie, and knowing the show had swept the Tony Awards, and being a huge fan of Mel Brooks (and Nathan Lane - Matthew Broderick, not so much), clearly my anticipation of a brilliant, transcendent experience was a case of too high expectations. Nonetheless, even looking back after a number of years, I'd say if you ever get the opportunity to see it, save your money. HAIRSPRAY, on the other hand, while not as good in my mind as the original movie (Divine! Pia Zadora!), was a lot of fun. ANNIE was cute.

Art Scott said...

Uh, when did "creative" become a noun?

Steve Oerkfitz said...

I'll try to forgive him for Annie since he wrote the book and not the music. Tomorrow is on my top ten list of annoying songs. Double annoying since its sung by a child.

Anonymous said...

ACS: I believe that happened in 1983.

sas

Matthew said...

ACS, personally I'm sick of people labeling themselves a "creative." So damn pretentious.