THOMAS R. MOHAN

MOHAN--Thomas Reed, of Manhattan and Lanesville, NY, on October 11, 2014, age 64, at Mount Sinai Palliative Care. Born on August 16, 1950, the youngest son of Adell and Joseph Mohan, Tom grew up in Middletown, OH. Tom graduated from Middletown High School in 1968. Following a freshman year at Dartmouth, Tom in the autumn of 1969, just a few months after the Stonewall riots, transferred to NYU, where he embraced activism as a ground-floor member of the Gay Liberation Front. After earning his B.A., Tom attended Yale School of Drama with Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato, and obtained an M.F.A. in playwriting in 1975. Tom's many plays, influenced by Ronald Firbank, Ivy Compton-Burnett and Joe Orton, were never produced, perhaps because they were too eccentric. While continuing to write, Tom maintained his strong relationship with NYU by working at the university's American Language Institute, starting full-time in 1977, and eventually becoming its assistant director, a position he held until his death. About 20 years ago, Tom shifted his passion from writing, cooking and opulent party-giving to the quarter-acre garden he established at his retreat in the Catskill hamlet of Lanesville, where despite the limitation of Hardiness Zone 5a, he nurtured an astonishing and ever-expanding multitude of plants, including more than 150 varieties of astilbes, his favorite flower (especially pink ones). Tom was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1999 and combated it valiantly and without complaint to the end. In addition to his brother, Patrick, and sister-in-law, Lee, of Bluffton, SC, and five nephews, Tom is survived by a tight circle of friends and colleagues who will love and miss him until they too are gone. A memorial at NYU is planned for November 14.