Richard Greenberg (born February 22, 1958)

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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 Los Angeles' South Coast Repertory Theatre, including The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, and Hurrah at Last.

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 first in London and then traveled to New York as the first collaboration between England's Donmar Warehouse and New York's Public Theater. After its Broadway transfer in early 2003, Take Me Out won widespread critical acclaim for Greenberg and numerous 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. Greenberg graduated from East Meadow High School in 1976 and later went on to attend Princeton University, where he graduated magna cum laude. At Princeton, Greenberg studied creative writing under Joyce Carol Oates and roomed with future Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw. He later attended Harvard for graduate work in English and American Literature, but later dropped out of the program when he was accepted to the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program in 1985.

Along with Take Me Out, Greenberg's plays include The Dazzle, The American Plan, Life Under Water, and The Author’s Voice. Recently, his adaptation of August Strindberg’s Dance of Death ran on Broadway, starring Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren and David Strathairn. He is a winner of the Oppenheimer Award and the first winner of the PEN/Laura Pels Award for a playwright in mid-career.

In 2013, Greenberg worked on three shows: on Broadway, an adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Assembled Parties and the book for the musical Far From Heaven which will open in June 2013 at Playwrights Horizons.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Greenberg

Further Readings:

Take Me Out: A Play by Richard Greenberg
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Faber & Faber; First Edition edition (August 6, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0571211186
ISBN-13: 978-0571211180
Amazon: Take Me Out: A Play

“A funny and troubling look at athletes and identity . . . Take Me Out is a dynamic, involving play.” —Donald Lyons, New York Post

Darren Lemming is the star center fielder for the champion New York Empires. An extraordinary athlete, he fills both his fans and his teammates with awe at his abilities and his presence on the field and off. When he makes the matter-of-fact announcement that he’s gay, he throws his team into turmoil and confusion, while he also emboldens his closeted accountant, Mason Marzac, to come to terms with his own sexuality—and to fully experience the pure joy of watching great athletes play a sport as well as it can be played. But Darren’s announcement brings to the fore the confused and twisted hostilities of the Empires’ brilliantly talented but deeply racist and homophobic pitcher, Shane Mungitt—from whose rage tragic consequences ensue.

The American premiere of Take Me Out took place at the Public Theater in New York City in September 2002. It will move to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in February 2003.

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