Tremendous news for all fans of Peter Shaffer!  A new play by him will
have its premiere soon.  As the author himself told me in a confidential
telephone conversation on this April 1 the play will have the title
"Ludwig" and deal with the life of Beethoven.  Beethoven will reveal the
secret cause for his deafness: he listened to an opera by Antonio Salieri
and there, hurt deeply by the mediocrity of Salieri's music, his hearing
ailings began.  The play will be written in a style unusual for Peter
Shaffer, "very poetic" as he said, due to two previously unknown experts
on plays and poetry, Janos Gereben and Steve Schwartz, who offered their
help to the notoriously plain-writing dramatist.

Robert