Peter Rodgers Melnick

Peter Rodgers 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, 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. 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. He also studied jazz with the Jaki Byard.

Melnick lives in Montecito, California, with wife, Talia Van-Son.

Works Musical theatre scores Adrift in Macao (2007) The Last Smoker in America (2012)

Film scores Vampire Knights (1987) Homesick, film short (1988) Get Smart, Again! (1989); TV movie Out of Sight, Out of Mind (1990) Bad Attitudes (1991); TV movie L.A. Story (1991) Convicts (1991) Only You (1992) In the Name of the Father, film short (1992) Running Mates (1992); TV movie Arctic Blue (1993) 12:01 (1993); TV movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995); TV movie For Hope (1996); TV movie Grand Avenue (1996); TV movie No One Could Protect Her (1996) Two Mothers for Zachary (1996); TV movie Lily Dale (1996) TV movie Every 9 Seconds (1997); TV movie Jitters (1997); TV movie The Only Thrill (1997) Time to Say Goodbye? (1997) Becoming Dick (2000); TV movie Tak For Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit (2000); Documentary Feature Mermaid (2000); TV movie Taking Back Our Town (2001); TV movie Call Waiting, (2004) Farce of the Penguins (2006) Benjamin (2018)

Television scores The Death of a Star (1987) TV documentary The Mystery of the Master Builders (1988) TV documentary Nightingales (1989) TV series The KGB, the Computer and Me (1990); TV documentary Testing Dirty (1990); TV series: ABC Afterschool Specials Magic (1991); TV series Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul (1995); TV series documentary: American Masters Robert Rauschenberg: Inventive Genius (1999); TV series documentary: American Masters Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood (2009); TV documentary James McNeill Whistler: The Case for Beauty (2014) TV documentary