Mel Brooks, Harvey Fierstein, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and More Broadway Stars Remember Broadway Great Thomas Meehan | Playbill

Lists Mel Brooks, Harvey Fierstein, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and More Broadway Stars Remember Broadway Great Thomas Meehan From collaborators to stars of The Producers, Hairspray, and more, the theatre community remembers the late book writer.
Thomas Meehan, Jenn Colella, Chad Kimball, David Hein, and Irene Sankoff at Come From Away Bruce Glikas/GettyEntertainment

On August 22, Playbill reported that Tony-winning book writer Thomas Meehan had passed away at age 88. The author of such shows as Annie, I Remember Mama, Ain’t Broadway Grand, The Producers, Hairspray, Bombay Dreams, Young Frankenstein, Cry-Baby, Elf, Chaplin, and Rocky won Tony Awards for the books of three of his works: Annie (1977), The Producers (2001), and Hairspray (2003).

Collaborators of his, such as Mel Brooks—with whom he worked on The Producers and Young Frankenstein—as well as actors from his productions—Hunter Foster (The Producers), Kerry Butler (Hairspray), and Rob McClure (Chaplin), among others—took to Twitter to remember Meehan’s contributions.

Though he made his Broadway debut later in life, at the age of 47 with the classic Annie, Meehan proved that it’s never too late to pursue greatness.

Meehan 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).

Read Playbill’s full obituary remembering Thomas Meehan here.
















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