High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Death Takes a Holiday is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan. The story is adapted from the 1924 Italian play La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella, which was adapted in English for Broadway in 1929 by Walter Ferris. That play was made into a 1934 film of the same name starring Fredric March, which was remade in 1998 as Meet Joe Black, starring Brad Pitt. The story of the musical is about lonely Death, who takes the form of a handsome young prince to understand human emotion. He falls in love with an engaged young woman and learns about love and sacrifice.