Michael Weller is an American playwright and screenwriter. Born in New York City on September 26, 1942, Weller spent his early years living in Nevada, Massachusetts, London, and New York. He attended Stockbridge School and later studied music composition at Brandeis University. Weller went on to study playwriting with Stephen Joseph at Manchester University, where he received a Diploma in Drama.
Early in his career, Weller began to collaborate with director Alan Schnieder, who worked with other playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee. Their partnership began after Schneider saw Weller’s play Moonchildren, and subsequently helped the production move to the Theatre de Lys Off-Broadway from 1973-1974. Weller has had several successful plays, but is perhaps best known for his screen adaptations of theatrical works. His screenplays include Hair (1979) and Ragtime (1981), for which he received an Oscar nomination for best screenplay.
Some of Weller’s most notable theatrical works include Moonchildren (1971), More Than You Deserve (1971), and Doctor Zhivago (2006). In 2017, Weller was presented with the Brandeis Creative Arts Award from his alma mater of Brandeis University. He is an active member of the Dramatist Guild of America and has served as the President of the Writers Guild Initiative from 2011 - 2018. In addition to his writing, Weller works as a teacher; Weller was previously a faculty member at The New School for Drama until 2020 and now teaches theater adaptation at HB Studios. He is one of the founders of the Cherry Lane Theatre’s Mentor Project. In 2005, the Broken Watch Theatre Company in New York named one of their performance spaces after Weller, in tribute to his artistic accomplishments.
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