Michael Weller

Michael Weller (born 26 September 1942) is a Brooklyn-based playwright who is best known for his plays Moonchildren and Loose Ends.

Weller is one of the founders of the Cherry Lane Theatre's acclaimed Mentor Project, which pairs pre-eminent playwrights with emerging playwrights for a season-long mentorship. 

In 2005, the Broken Watch Theatre Company in New York named its performance space The Michael Weller Theatre "in honor of his tremendous accomplishments."

Weller is currently a faculty member at The New School for Drama in New York City.

Early life and education

Michael Weller was born on September 26, 1942, in New York City, and has lived in Nevada, Massachusetts, London, and New York.

He attended Stockbridge School and later attended Brandeis University in Massachusetts, where he studied music composition, then began writing plays. 

In the late 1960s at Manchester University, he studied playwriting with Stephen Joseph ( the child of actress Hermione Gingold and the publisher Michael Joseph) and received a Diploma in Drama. He then moved to London to write plays.

Plays

• Moonchildren (1971)
• More Than You Deserve (musical with Jim Steinman - 1973)
• Fishing (1974)
• Split (1979)
• Loose Ends (1979)
• Dwarfman, Master of a Million Shapes (1982)
• The Ballad of Soapy Smith (1984) About infamous con man Soapy Smith
• Ghost on Fire (1986)
• Spoils of War (1988)
• Lake No Bottom (1989)
• Buying Time (1991)
• Help (1992/2006)
• Dogbrain (play for children - 1993)
• Mistresses (1997)
• What the Night is For / Do Not Disturb (2002)
• Approaching Moomtaj (2005)
• Zhivago (musical with Lucy Simon - 2006/2011/2015)
• 50 Words (2007/2007)
• Side Effects (2011)
• Beast (2008)
• How to Write Play So Not Getting Fingers Broken (2011, Broken Watch Theatre Company - part of double bill Sex Good, Money Bad - with Now There's Just the Three of Us
• The Full Catastrophe (2013)
• Abel Finley (2014)
• Jericho (from Liliom by Ferenc Molnár) (2014 / produced 2018 Attic Theatre Company)
• Summer (2016)
• All That Remains (2017)
• A Late Morning (in America) with Ronald Reagan (2018 - Contemporary American Theatre Festival - CATF)
• A Welcome Guest ("Toppledon") (2019 - CATF
• Buyer Beware(2017-2019) - Vicious Circle Productions/Tony Speciale
• Loving, Longing, Leaving (2020)

Screenplays

• Once and Again (1999) (Television)
• Spoils of War (1994) – play/teleplay
• Lost Angels (1989)
• Ragtime (1981)
• Hair (1979)