Peter Rodgers Melnick

Peter Melnick (a.k.a. Peter Rodgers Melnick and Peter R. Melnick) (born July 24, 1958) is an American author and composer for film, television and musical theatre.

Career

Some of Melnick’s earlier film score credits include L.A. Story, The Only Thrill, Convicts, and Farce of the Penguins. His television credits include the PBS's, Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, Grand Avenue, and Lily Dale by Horton Foote.

His first produced musical was Adrift in Macao,[1] featuring script and lyrics by Christopher Durang. Melnick then collaborated with Bill Russell on The Last Smoker in America, a musical comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling with a new law forbidding smoking.[2] It opened in Columbus, Ohio in late 2010.

Melnick and Russell have also worked together on two musical one-acts, Patter for the Floating Lady, based on the eponymous Steve Martin, and A Bad Spell, adapted from a Virginia Moriconi short story Simple Arithmetic.

Personal life

Melnick is the son of Daniel Melnick and Linda Rodgers, and grandson of Richard Rodgers and grew up in New York City. He graduated from The Choate School (which later merged with Rosemary Hall to become Choate Rosemary Hall) and attended Harvard College, Berklee College of Music, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.[3] He also studied jazz with the Jaki Byard.[4]

Melnick lives in Montecito, California, with wife, Talia Van-Son. He has two children by a previous marriage.

Works

Musical theatre scores
  • Adrift in Macao (2005)
  • The Last Smoker in America (2010)

Film scores

Television scores
  • The KGB, the Computer and Me (1990); TV documentary
  • Testing Dirty (1990); TV series: ABC Afterschool Specials
  • Magic (1991); TV series
  • Lily Dale (1996); TV series: Hallmark Hall of Fame
  • Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul (1995); TV series documentary: American Masters
  • Robert Rauschenberg: Inventive Genius (1999); TV series documentary: American Masters
  • Tak for Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit (1999); documentary
  • Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood (2009); TV documentary

References
  1. Charles Isherwood. "Here's Looking at You, Beloved Movie Clichés". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  2. Piepenburg, Erik (October 12, 2009). "NYMF: Five Questions About 'The Last Smoker in America'". The New York Times.
  3. "Musical Composer Peter Melnick ’76 Premieres 'The Last Smoker in America'". The Choate School. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  4. Melnick, Peter (2013). "Biography". PeterMelnick.com. Archived from the original on 2016-10-10. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
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