Arthur Kopit, a three-time Tony nominated playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist known for fusing disparate genres, absurdity and a darkly comic worldview, died. He was 83 years old.
Kopit died on Friday, said Rick Miramontez, a senior publicist for DKC / O & M PR. No other details were available.
Kopit won Tony in 1970 for “Indians”, a criticism of the Vietnam War and the treatment given by Americans to Native Americans that starred Stacy Keach as Buffalo Bill. Nine years later, he received another nomination for “Wings”, the story of the recovery of a stroke victim, starring Constance Cummings. Both “Indians” and “Wings” were Pulitzer finalists for drama.
Kopit won his third Tony nomination in 1982 for “Nine”, an adaptation of Federico Fellini’s film “8 1/2”. “Nine” returned to Broadway in 2003 and won two Tony Awards, including best revival. In 2009, Rob Marshall directed the film based on the Kopit script.
Other works by Kopit include “Phantom”, a musical version of “The Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Leroux that was overshadowed by Andrew Lloyd Weber’s most popular version, and “The End of the World”, a scathing investigation of the arms race and nuclear destruction.
He made his Broadway debut in 1963 with “Oh, dad, poor dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin ‘So Sad”, which Jerome Robbins directed on Broadway while Kopit was still a Harvard student.
Later, Kopit taught at Wesleyan University, Yale University and City College of New York. He was a member of the Lark Play Development Center,
He leaves his wife, Leslie Garis; their children Alex, Ben, Kat; his grandchildren Arthur, Beatrix and Clara; and his sister, Susan.