Peter Shaffer story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and court composer Antonio Salieri who, overcome with jealousy at hearing the "voice of God" coming from an "obscene child", sets out to destroy his rival. When the show moved to Broadway it won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play and, like "Equus", ran for more than a thousand performances. After the success of "Amadeus", Shaffer wrote the play "Lettice and Lovage" specifically for Dame Maggie Smith in 1986, for which he was nominated for another Tony Award and Dame Maggie Smith eventually won the Tony Award for best actress after three nominations in
Paul Shaffer on the 40th anniversary special of "Saturday Night Live", playing music to Bill Murray's lounge singer character, a love song from the movie "Jaws". In May 2015, the Ride of Fame honoured Paul Shaffer with a double decker sightseeing bus in New York City to commemorate his long run as the leader of the CBS Orchestra for the "Late Show with David Letterman". Shaffer was the musical director for "A Very Murray Christmas", a 2015 Netflix variety special starring Bill Murray in which Shaffer also appears and performs extensively. In October 2017, Shaffer returned to the late night stage to