Richard Nelson (playwright)

Richard Nelson
Born	October 17, 1950 (1950-10-17) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Playwright

Richard Nelson (born October 17, 1950) is an American playwright and librettist. He wrote the books for the musicals James Joyce's The Dead and the Broadway version of Chess.

Personal life

Nelson was born in Chicago, Illinois.

He married Cynthia Blair Bacon on May 21, 1972; they have two children.

Career

For three years, Nelson was the chair of the playwriting department at the Yale School of Drama.

Nelson received the 2000 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for James Joyce's The Dead. He received the Olivier Award for Best Play for Goodnight Children Everywhere (1999). He received a Giles Cooper Award in 1987 for Languages Spoken Here and in 1989 for Eating Words. He was nominated for the Tony Award, Best Play, for Two Shakespearean Actors (1992) and the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding New Play for Some Americans Abroad (1990).

Plays by Nelson

• An American Comedy
• Bal
• Between East and West
• The Cherry Orchard (adaption of Anton Chekhov)
• Columbus and the Discover of Japan
• Conjuring an Event
• Conversations in Tusculum
• Don Juan
• Enrico IV
• Frank's Home
• Franny's Way
• The General From America
• Goodnight Children Everywhere
• How Shakespeare Won the West
• Il Campiello
• James Joyce's The Dead
• Jitterbugging: Scenes of Sex in a New Society
• Jungle Coup
• Kenneth's First Play (written with Colin Chambers)
• The Killing of Yablonski
• Left
• Life Sentences
• Madame Melville
• The Marriage of Figaro (adaption of Pierre Beaumarchais)
• Misha's Party (written with Alexander Gelman)
• Miss Julie (adaptation of August Strindberg)
• New England
• Principia Scriptoriae
• The Return of Pinocchio
• Rip Van Winkle, or "The Works"
• Rodney's Wife
• Scooping
• Some Americans Abroad
• The Seagull (adaption of Anton Chekhov)
• The Suicide (adaption of Nikolai Erdman)
• Three Sisters (adaptation of Anton Chekhov)
• Two Shakespearean Actors
• The Vienna Notes
• The Wood Demon (adaptation of Anton Chekhov)

Nelson's plays are published by Faber, T C G, and Broadway Play Publishing Inc..

Radio Plays

• Languages Spoken Here (BBC Radio 3, 11 December 1987)
• Eating Words (BBC Radio 4, 30 October 1989)
• Advice to Eastern Europe (BBC Radio 3, 27 December 1990)
• The American Wife (BBC Radio 4, 25 January 1996)
• Hyde Park-on-Hudson (BBC Radio 3, 7 June 2009)

References=

External links

• Richard Nelson at the Internet Broadway Database
• Richard Nelson at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Richard Nelson Biography (1950— ), Filmreference.com