Richard Willett

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Richard Willett is a Canadian-American fiction writer, playwright, and screenwriter. He was born in Hollywood, California, where his father, Bob Willett was a reporter covering the movies for the Canadian press.[1][2] Willett grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and lived for many years in New York City.

Life and career[edit]

Willett left Vancouver for New York at the age of nineteen and began writing short stories. His first published story appeared in Christopher Street in 1991.[3] Subsequent stories appeared in Hawaii Review,[4] Karamu,[5] Oxalis,[6][7] Art & Understanding,[8] and American Writing,[9] as well as a short play in Art & Understanding.[10][11] His novel A Friend of Dorothy’s, a semiautobiographical work written at the height of the AIDS epidemic in New York in the 1980s, was excerpted in Christopher Street[12] and Permafrost[13] and will be published in 2024.

In 1990 Willett was the recipient of an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship[14] and in 1993 he received a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference to study playwriting with Horton Foote and Wendy Hammond. In 1994 he joined Interborough Repertory Theatre’s New Directions Theater, where his plays S.O.S., The Godsend,[15] Hot Air,[16] and Triptych[17] were premiered off-off-Broadway. In 2001 he and his frequent director Eliza Beckwith spun off from IRT as a separate company called New Directions Theater (NDT), where they premiered Willett’s Random Harvest,[18] The Flid Show,[19][20][21] and Tiny Bubbles.[22] In 2022 his play A Terminal Event, which won a Julie Harris Playwrighting Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild,[23] was premiered at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles.[24] In 2023 9/10[25] and Grief at High Tide[26] are both scheduled for world premieres.

As a screenwriter Willett has twice been in the Top 50 of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships competition, a finalist for the Page International Screenwriting Awards[27] as well as both the Sundance Screenwriting and Episodic Labs, and a semifinalist for the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition. A short film he wrote, The Gazebo, is scheduled to be shot in October 2023, and he has finished the script for an upcoming animated feature for children.[28]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "National Post 30 Aug 2001, page 12". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  2. ^ "Writer, Actor Knew Bob, Bing, Liz," Globe and Mail, September 6, 2001
  3. ^ Christopher Street 1991-10: Vol 13 Iss 164. Internet Archive. That New Magazine, Inc. October 1991.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ^ Mānoa, University of Hawai'i at (1993). "Hawaiʻi Review, Volume 17, Number 3". hdl:10125/42412. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ^ “The Secret,” Karamu XIV, no. 1 (Charleston, IL: Eastern Illinois University, Spring 1994)
  6. ^ “Summer,” Oxalis, Issue no. 17 (Stone Ridge, NY: Stone Ridge Poetry Society, 1992)
  7. ^ “Alan,” Oxalis, Issue no. 18 (Stone Ridge, NY: Stone Ridge Poetry Society, 1992)
  8. ^ “There Sure Are A Lot of You People,” Art & Understanding 1, no. 3 (Spring 1992)
  9. ^ “Is It Hot in Here or Is It Just Me?,” American Writing 5 (Philadelphia: Nierika Editions, 1992)
  10. ^ “Boys Will Be Boys,” Art & Understanding 4, no, 3 (June/July 1995)
  11. ^ “Boys Will Be Boys,” Chael Needle and Diane Goettel, eds., Art & Understanding: Literature from the First Twenty Years of A&U (Black Lawrence Press, 2014)  
  12. ^ Christopher Street 1993-01-04: Iss 195. Internet Archive. That New Magazine, Inc. 1993-01-04.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  13. ^ “Dinosaur Motel,” Permafrost 16 (University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Spring 1994)
  14. ^ "Former Fellows 1990-1999". The Edward F. Albee Foundation. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  15. ^ "May-June 1997". oobr.com. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  16. ^ "Hot Air". oobr.com. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  17. ^ Gates, Anita (1999-02-26). "THEATER REVIEW; Boys and Girls Together (Not at the Same Time) (Published 1999)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  18. ^ Gates, Anita (2001-07-03). "THEATER REVIEW; Sharing a Fear (of Success) With a Ghost (Published 2001)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  19. ^ Isherwood, Charles (2005-02-01). "One Among 10,000 Others Deformed by a Drug (Published 2005)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  20. ^ Schillinger, Liesl (2005-01-30). "Arms and the Man: The Star of 'The Flid Show' (Published 2005)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  21. ^ "The Flid Show | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News". WNYC. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  22. ^ Gates, Anita (2012-07-29). "Get Thee to a Bar (and Then a Nunnery) (Published 2012)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  23. ^ "Past Winners – Beverly Hills Theatre Guild". Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  24. ^ Morris, Steven (2022-06-23). "Richard Willett's trenchant "A Terminal Event" at Victory Theatre Center". STAGE RAW - ARTS IN L.A. - SERVED FRESH. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  25. ^ "NDT New Directions Theater". newdirectionstheater.org. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  26. ^ "Grief at High Tide by Richard Willett at Vivid Stage". vivid-stage. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  27. ^ "2017 Finalists | PAGE International Screenwriting Awards: Screenplay Contests". pageawards.com. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
  28. ^ "November 30, 2021: Richard Willett Hired to Co-Author Screenplay". ScreenwritingU. 2021-11-30. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
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