(After "A Chorus Line" and "West Side Story", "Mn Of La Mancha" is my 3rd favorite musical!!)

Dale Wasserman, Playwright and Librettist, Is Dead at 94
By Andrew Gans
December 26, 2008
Dale Wasserman, who wrote the book for the 1966 Tony Award-winning musical
Man of La Mancha, died of heart failure in Arizona, according to Variety.
He was 94.

Mr. Wasserman also penned the stage version of One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which was based on the novel by Ken Kesey. The
drama, set in a mental hospital, was seen on Broadway twice: in 1963 with a cast
led by Kirk Douglas as Randle P. McMurphy and in 2001 with Gary Sinise as the
rebel patient McMurphy and August: Osage County's Amy Morton as Nurse
Ratched.
Mr. Wasserman's Broadway career began in 1954 as the production stage manager
for The Azuma Kabuki Dancers and Musicians; that production played a
brief revival in 1955 for which Mr. Wasserman was the lighting designer.
It was the classic musical Man of La Mancha — based on Mr. Wasserman's
teleplay "I, Don Quixote" — that solidified his career. The musical, which
featured music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion, played five Broadway
engagements. The first, in 1965, starring Richard Kiley as Don Quixote, ran
2,328 performances; revivals were seen in 1972, 1977, 1992 and 2002. The musical
is also a staple at regional theatres around the country.
Mr. Wasserman, Variety reports, wrote approximately 80 plays, which are
housed in the Billy Rose Collection at the Lincoln Center Library for the
Performing Arts. He also penned the book "The Impossible Musical."
His screen work won him a WGA Award for "The DuPont Show of the Month"; he
was also nominated for a 1961 Emmy Award for that same program.
Dale Wasserman was born Nov. 2, 1917, in Rhinelander, WI. He married Martha
Nelly Garza in 1984; a previous marriage to actress Ramsay Ames ended in
divorce.