Mel Shapiro

Mel Shapiro (1935-2024) – Shapiro’s off-Broadway productions included the original staging of John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves, which won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play in 1971, and Rachel Owen’s The Karl Marx Play for the American Place Theatre. London productions included the musicals Two Gentlemen of Verona and Kings and Clowns. For Broadway, Shapiro co-wrote the book (with Guare) and directed the 1971 musical adaptation of Two Gentlemen of Verona and directed the 1978 revival of Stop the World – I Want to Get Off with Sammy Davis, Jr. as well as John Guare’s 1979 play Bosoms and Neglect. He also staged works at Lincoln Center, including Václav Havel’s The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, which won an Obie Award for Best Foreign Play, and Shakespeare’s Richard III. His relationship with Joseph Papp spanned six years at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. Among his productions there were Guare’s Rich and Famous, Marco Polo Sings a Solo and John Ford Noonan’s Older People.