Publications Scanlan has written articles that have appeared in
The New York Times "Arts & Leisure" section,
The Village Voice,
The New Yorker,
Vanity Fair, and
Playboy. His novel
Does Freddy Dance was published in 1995. He is the co-book writer (with Richard Morris) and lyricist of the musical
Thoroughly Modern Millie, which premiered on
Broadway in 2002, with music by
Jeanine Tesori and starring a then unknown
Sutton Foster.
Millie won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Musical. Scanlan and Tesori also wrote the song "The Girl in 14G" for
Kristin Chenoweth's debut CD,
Let Yourself Go. He is the co-writer, with
Sherie Rene Scott, of the musical
Everyday Rapture, which opened
Off-Broadway in May 2009 and again on Broadway on April 29, 2010. He and Scott also co-wrote
Whorl Inside a Loop, inspired by their experiences teaching inside a men's correctional facility.
Whorl was produced Off-Broadway in 2015, co-directed by Scanlan and Michael Mayer (Scanlan's best friend for 40 years) and was named one of the best plays of the year by
New York Magazine. In 2011, it was announced that Scanlan is reworking the 1960
Meredith Willson musical
The Unsinkable Molly Brown to change the fanciful non-fiction plot (originally written by Richard Morris) to a more factual one. The show received its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre Company in 2014, starring
Beth Malone and directed by Kathleen Marshall. Scanlan was the script consultant to
Berry Gordy for
Motown: The Musical on Broadway in 2013. In 2015 he was the Artistic Advisor for a new musical,
Invisible Thread, at
Second Stage Theatre, directed by
Diane Paulus. In 2015, Scanlan directed the staged concert of
Little Shop of Horrors at the
New York City Center as part of their
Encores! Off-Center Series, starring
Jake Gyllenhaal, Taran Killam and
Ellen Greene reprising her signature role of Audrey. ==Personal life==