LONDON (AP) – Playwright Peter Shaffer, whose durable, award-winning hits included “Equus” and “Amadeus,” has died. He was 90.
Shaffer’s agent, Rupert Lord, said Shaffer died Monday while on a visit to southwest Ireland with friends and family.
Born in Liverpool in 1926, Shaffer had his first big hit in 1964 with “The Royal Hunt of the Sun,” a drama about the Spanish conquest of Peru that was staged by Britain’s newly founded National Theatre.
Shaffer went on to write many of his plays for the theater, from where they often moved on to Broadway.
For much of his long career Shaffer achieved the often-elusive goal of combining commercial and critical success, writing literate, cleverly crafted plays that became box-office hits in London and New York.