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Richard Greenberg (born February 22, 1958) is an American playwright and television writer known for his subversively humorous depictions of middle-class American life. He has had more than 25 plays premiere on and Off-Broadway in New York City and eight at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, California, including The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, and Hurrah at Last.[1][2]
Richard Greenberg | |
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| Born | February 22, 1958 East Meadow, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Playwright, television writer |
| Education | Princeton University (BA) Harvard University Yale University (MFA) |
| Notable works | Eastern Standard (1988) Three Days of Rain (1998) Take Me Out (2003) |
| Notable awards | Tony Award for Best Play New York Drama Critics Circle Award Drama Desk Award Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Drama Oppenheimer Award |
Greenberg is perhaps best known for his 2003 Tony Award winning play, Take Me Out, about the conflicts that arise after a Major League Baseball player nonchalantly announces to the media that he is gay. The play premiered in London and ran in New York as the first collaboration between England's Donmar Warehouse and New York's Public Theater.[3] After it transferred to Broadway in early 2003, Take Me Out won widespread critical acclaim for Greenberg and many prestigious awards.
Greenberg grew up in East Meadow, New York, a middle-class Long Island town in Nassau County, east of New York City. His father, Leon Greenberg, was an executive for New York's Century Theaters movie chain, and his mother Shirley was a homemaker.[4] Greenberg graduated from East Meadow High School in 1976 and went on to attend Princeton University, where he graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in English.[5] As part of his degree, Greenberg completed a 438-page senior thesis titled "A Romantic Career - A Novel".[6] At Princeton, Greenberg studied creative writing under Joyce Carol Oates and roomed with future Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw. Later he attended Harvard for graduate work in English and American literature, but dropped out of the program when he was accepted to the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program in 1985.[5]
Along with Take Me Out, Greenberg's plays include The Dazzle, The American Plan, Life Under Water, and The Author's Voice. His adaptation of August Strindberg's Dance of Death ran on Broadway in 2002, starring Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren, and David Strathairn.
He received the George Oppenheimer Award presented by Newsday in 1985 for The Bloodletters, produced off-off-Broadway while he was at Yale.[7][8][9] In 1998 he was the first winner of the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for a playwright in mid-career.[10][11]
In 2013, Greenberg worked on three shows: on Broadway, an adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's[12] and The Assembled Parties, and the book for the musical Far From Heaven, which opened in June 2013 at Playwrights Horizons.[13]
His play Our Mother's Brief Affair premiered at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa in April 2009. Directed by Pam MacKinnon, the cast featured Jenny O'Hara, Matthew Arkin, Arye Gross and Marin Hinkle. This was a commission from the SCRT.[14][15] The play opened on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club, on December 28, 2015 (previews), and officially on January 20, 2016, starring Linda Lavin.[16][17]
His play The Babylon Line premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on November 10, 2016, in previews, and officially on December 5.[18] Directed by Terry Kinney, the cast features Josh Radnor as a writing teacher and Elizabeth Reaser as his student.[19] The play was first performed at New York Stage and Film & Vassar College's Powerhouse Theater in June and July 2014, starring Radnor.[20]
Style
The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights describes Greenberg's "most prominent" interest as history "and (also) the past". He has a strong "tendency to draw on historical characters or events——the Lost Generation, the Collyer Brothers, the New York Yankees" as sources for his material. He is said to have a "witty use of language."[21]
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Theatre
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Television
- 1989: "Ask Me Again" (based on "An Old-Fashioned Story" by Laurie Colwin), American Playhouse, PBS.
- 1989: "Life under Water" (based on his one-act play), PBS.
- 1989: "The Sad Professor," Trying Times, PBS.
- 1991: "Georgie through the Looking Glass," Sisters, NBC.
- 1999: "The Time the Millennium Approached," Time of Your Life, Fox.
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