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Peter Shaffer

By Abigail Sanchez Sifuentes

  • Born

    Born
    Peter Shaffer was born in Liverpool, England to a middle-class Jewish family. His parents were Jack Shaffer, a real estate agent, and Reka Shaffer (née Friedman). He had a prestigious education and a identical twin brother also gained some success as a playwright later on.

  • Moving

    Moving
    The family moved to London in 1936.

  • First Job

    First Job
    Peter Shaffer worked as a conscript in the coal mines in England from 1944 to 1947; that is, during the last year of World War II and the immediate postwar period.

  • Graduate

    Graduate
    He won a scholarship to Trinity College and graduated from Trinity College of Cambridge University in 1950.

  • The move

    The move
    In 1951, Peter then moved to New York, working in a bookshop, a department store and the acquisitions department of the New York Public Library.

  • First Writing

    First Writing
    He wrote The Woman in the Wardrobe (1951), a detective story under the pen-name Peter Antony, and followed by two more in the series, jointly written with his brother

  • Teleplay

    Teleplay
    He penned his first teleplay, The Salt Land (written 1951; first aired 1954 on the BBC), which is set in Palestine during the formation of Israel.

  • Established himself

    Established himself
    Five Finger Exercise (1958), directed by John Gielgud and winning an Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year, that established his reputation as a playwright.

  • Play

    Play
    It was followed by plays such as Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), about the conquest of Peru by the Spanish

  • Play

    Play
    He also made Black Comedy (1967), where characters feel their way around a pitch black room--although the stage had the lights on.

  • The Battle of Shrivings

    The Battle of Shrivings
    It debuted in London and clarified that he most closely connected it to trips to New York City in 1968 and 1969, "when he became obsessed by the fever of that time." However, it did not find success. It had tale of a society of pacifists, protestors, and vegetarians led by Sir Gideon Petrie—a cross between Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Daniel Berrigan, and Abbie Hoffman.(plans to bring it to New York were abandoned)

  • Wrote the Play

    Wrote the Play
    He wrote Equus which tells the disturbing story of a 17-year old stable boy starring Welsh actor Richard Burton (1925–84) and English actor Peter Firth (b. 1953) it was nominated for three Academy Awards.

  • Amadeus

    Amadeus
    In 1979, Shaffer earned success with Amadeus, which won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play. It was then made into a film, and won eight Academy Awards in 1984, including Best Picture. Shaffer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.

  • Play

    Play
    Yonadab was another play he wrote it was a biblical epic set in Jerusalem in 1000 BC, which premiered at the National Theatre in 1985.

  • Play

    Play
    Lettice and Lovage (1987), which he wrote for actress Maggie Smith it was nominated for another Tony Award, and for her performance in it, Dame Maggie Smith won the Tony Award for best actress after three nominations in 1990.

  • Commander

    Commander
    In 1987, in the wake of these and other critical and popular successes, Shaffer was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was knighted in 2001.

  • Play

    Play
    Whom Do I Have the Honour of Addressing? (1990), a radio play broadcast by the BBC.

  • Personal life

    Not much was known about his personal life but it was known that Shaffer was gay but did not write explicitly about it. His partner Robert Leonard died in 1990.(not sure maybe married) "He married three times, and had six children with his first wife Loretta Newman."

  • Award

    Award
    Shaffer received the William Inge Award for Distinguished Achievement in the American Theater in 1992

  • Play

    Play
    His most recent work is Gift of the Gorgon (premiered 1992; published 1993), which reprised Shaffer's career-long fascination with the ancient Mediterranean. Though this late work received mixed reviews.

  • Stop writing

    After some revivals and failure Shaffer decided to stop on his writing. He claimed to have several “half-written plays in manila folders”, but said: “I feel slightly like that donkey in Aesop’s Fables that can’t decide which pile of hay to eat, so eats neither and starves to death.”

  • Brother

    His brother Anthony passed away in 2001. The brothers were reportedly close. Mr. Shaffer’s plays so often focused on pairs of male rivals — Pizarro and Atahualpa, Dysart and Strang, Salieri and Mozart — whose competition delivers both nourishment and suffering.

  • Accomplishment

    Accomplishment
    2007 was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

  • Death

    Death
    Peter Shaffer died on June 6, 2016, while spending time with family and friends in County Cork, Ireland.

  • Quote

    Quote
    "it was my task in life to make elaborate pieces of theatre." (1964)
    This show that his work was his life and he was able to accomplish what he wanted he said this during rehearsals for The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

  • Cites

    https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Shaffer
    https://stageagent.com/writers/73/peter-shaffer
    https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/peter-shaffer
    https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Equus/author/
    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/arts/peter-shaffer-dies-at-90-playwright-won-tonys-for-equus-and-amadeus.html
    https://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/peter-shaffer.html