Michael Weller

Michael Weller is a playwright and screenwriter best known for his plays MOONCHILDREN, LOOSE ENDS and FIFTY WORDS, and for his screenplays of HAIR and RAGTIME. Weller has mentored playwrights and screenwriters throughout his career. He designed the acclaimed Mentor Project for the Cherry Lane Theatre, and served as its Supervising Mentor for its initial ten years.

He has won an Academy Award nomination, an N.A.A.C.P. Outstanding Contribution Award, Critics Outer Circle Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, the Flora Roberts Award of the Dramatists Guild of America for distinguished playwriting, and the Helen Merrill Award. The Broken Watch Theatre Company named their playhouse in his honor.

His adaptations include the screenplay of HAIR (from the stage musical by Gerome Ragni and James Rado), RAGTIME (from the novel by E.L. Doctorow, Academy Award Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplays) and IN SPITE OF LOVE (from his Broadway play SPOILS OF WAR.)

Stage Adaptations: “The Making of Theodore Thomas, Citizen” (from Paul Greene’s JOHNNY JOHSON – staged at The Stepney Institute, Toynbee Hall, London), THE FULL CATASTROPHE (from the novel by David Carkeet, performed at  Contemporary American Theatre Festival), JERICHO (from the stage play Liliom, by Ferenc Molnar – Attic Theatre Company) and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, THE MUSICAL (from the Novel by Boris Pasternak – Broadway/Europe, London concert presentation).

He has taught playwriting/adaptation at the Toynbee Hall (London), New York University, The University of Wisconsin Madison (Carl Djerassi Distinguished Professorship) and The New School for Drama.

Also see:

https://vimeo.com/252275057/96f5cf4222