Peter Shaffer screenplay for "Equus", he was nominated for the 1977 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar but the award went to Alvin Sargent, who wrote the screenplay for "Julia". For writing the screenplay for "Amadeus", Shaffer received both the 1984 Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the 1984 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Shaffer was homosexual but did not write explicitly about it. His boyfriend Robert Leonard died in 1990. Shaffer died on June 6, 2016, at the age of ninety while on a trip to the south-west of Ireland. He co-wrote three detective novels with his brother Anthony Shaffer under the pseudonym "Peter Antony".
The Play of the Week costs were kept to an average of $40,000. Although the budget was low, the show had a high distinction which, combined with its reputation as an innovative production, gave it momentum and propelled it into winning a Peabody Award. The Play of the Week The Play of the Week was an American anthology series of televised stage plays which aired in NTA Film Network syndication from October 12, 1959 to May 1, 1961. The series presented 67 (35 in the first season, 32 in the second) videotaped Broadway-style productions, broadcast nightly and Sunday afternoons on NTA-owned independent station WNTA-TV (now