Peter Shaffer Shaffer received the William Inge Award for Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre in 1992. Two years later he was appointed Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. In 1993 he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) by the University of Bath. Shaffer's play, "Five Finger Exercise" won the Evening Standard Drama Award when it premiered in London and then won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play when it moved to New York City. Shaffer's play, "Equus" won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Play and the New York Drama
The Royal Hunt of the Sun Music is a key element to this play, more so than any other by Peter Shaffer. He wanted strange and disturbing sounds produced on primitive instruments such as saws, reed pipes, drums (tablas and bongos) and cymbals to create the aural world of 16th Century Peru. Shaffer was so impressed with Marc Wilkinson's score for "The Royal Hunt Of The Sun", which he has described as "perhaps the best score for a play to be written since Grieg embellished "Peer Gynt"", that he now considers it integral to the play. The staging is relatively simple: an upper and lower part