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
Peter Shaffer Peter Shaffer Sir Peter Levin Shaffer, CBE (; 15 May 1926 – 6 June 2016), was an English playwright and screenwriter. He wrote numerous award-winning plays, of which several were adapted into films. Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in Liverpool, the son of Reka (née Fredman) and Jack Shaffer. He was the identical twin brother of fellow playwright Anthony Shaffer. He was educated at the Hall School, Hampstead, a boys' prep school and St Paul's School, London, an independent school for boys, and subsequently he gained a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, to study history. Shaffer was a