Richard Nelson (born October 17, 1950) is an American playwright who has written several award-winning radio plays. He is perhaps most notable for writing the books for the Broadway musicals The Dead and Chess.
Biography[]
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Nelson went to college in New York State. He lived in England for a year, returning to the U.S. in 1973. Since his first professional theatre play in 1975, he has written many acclaimed plays.
Theatre Work[]
Work in Radio[]
Nelson's first foray into radio drama came upon his return to the United States in 1973, when he wrote a series of radio plays inspired by current events, particularly the Watergate Scandal. They were broadcast on WUHY-FM[1].
He has received two Giles Cooper Awards - in 1987 for Languages Spoken Here and in 1989 for Eating Words.
Nelson's most recent radio play was Hyde Park-on-Hudson. Conceived as a film project, Nelson's choice of director proved unavailable at the time, so it was reworked as a radio play, produced in 2009. The film followed in 2012[2].
Radio Plays[]
- The Fall of Agnew
- Hank Aaron's 715th
- The Unrequited Lovers' Manual
- Watergate: An Audio Memory
- Languages Spoken Here (1987)
- Eating Words (1989)
- Roots in Water (1989)
- Principia Scriptoriae (1990)
- Advice to Eastern Europe (1990)
- The American Wife (1994)
- Some Americans Abroad (1995)
- Hyde Park-on-Hudson (2009)