Richard Dresser

Richard Dresser (born 1951) is an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and teacher whose work has been performed in New York, leading regional theaters, and all over Europe. His first dystopian fiction novel, It Happened Here, was released in October 2020. The novel is an oral history of an American family from the years 2019 to 2035, dealing with life in a totalitarian state when you still have Netflix and two-day free shipping and all you've lost is your freedom. He is co-producing a documentary about Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, antiwar priests and lifelong activists.

Personal life and early career Dresser was raised in central Massachusetts, where he was captain of the high school hockey team and catcher on the varsity baseball team. He graduated from Brown University in 1973. In his early twenties he worked a variety of jobs ranging from machine operator in a plastics factory to security guard to local radio news reporter in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This motivated him to get a graduate degree in communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was Program Director at the local NPR station. He took a life-changing course in dramatic writing which led him to write his first play. The play won a college playwriting competition and started him on his way as a playwright.

Before finding success as a playwright, he did freelance writing for corporate speeches and wrote industrial films, many for pharmaceutical companies. He credits his early career experiences in factories and the corporate world with inspiring his workplace comedies, The Downside and Below the Belt (set in a pharmaceutical company and a manufacturing plant, respectively). three musicals, and various shorter plays have been performed all over the country. Venues that have hosted regional, national, or world premieres of his work include the Humana Festival at Actors Theater of Louisville, the Contemporary American Theatre Festival (CATF) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, California, and the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, Massachusetts. He has developed plays at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference in Connecticut, the Denver Center's New Play Summit, and the PlayPenn New Play Conference in Philadelphia.

Among his notable early works were Better Days (which premiered in April 1987 at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays) and The Downside (which premiered in November 1987 at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Connecticut). In 1995, Dresser's Below the Belt premiered at the Humana Festival, followed by a 1996 Off-Broadway production. The Wall Street Journal named the play the "best new American play of the season." Since its debut, Below the Belt has found especially high popularity all over Europe, including over 50 productions in Germany alone. Below the Belt, along with a number of his other plays, have been produced at the Schaubuhne Theatre in Berlin under the direction of Thomas Ostermeier. The play was later filmed as Human Error, directed by Robert M. Young. It appeared at the Sundance Film Festival.

His most successful play in the United States is Rounding Third, a 2002 two-character comedy about two Little League coaches, which was workshopped at CATF in 2001 before its 2002 premiere in Chicago. In 2003, the play was performed at San Diego's Old Globe Theater and the Laguna Playhouse before an off-Broadway run and a return to CATF in 2004. It was later made into the film Benched.

Kevin Kelly of the Boston Globe called Dresser "a ferocious playwright...who writes with a headlong intensity and a sense of pervasive mystery."

The LA Times said, "Dresser's dialogue crackles like gunfire in a shooting gallery."

John Simon in New York Magazine said, "Below the Belt is a terribly serious play that keeps you steadily laughing; properly understood, it should also make you weep."

More recent plays include The Last Days of Mickey & Jean, about an aging gangster on the run with his longtime girlfriend. It premiered at Merrimack Repertory Theatre and later at Penguin Rep. Trouble Cometh, a comic thriller about two executives locked in an existential struggle against an impossible deadline to create a reality TV show, premiered at San Francisco Playhouse in 2015.

Musicals Dresser wrote the book for the Beach Boys Broadway musical Good Vibrations. After development at New York Stage and Film in Poughkeepsie, New York, the play opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in February and closed in April after 94 performances. Dresser wrote the book for the original musical, Johnny Baseball, about the Curse of the Red Sox, with lyrics by Willie Reale and music by his brother Rob. It premiered at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the spring of 2010, under the direction of Diane Paulus. It later played the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The Holler, a bluegrass ghost musical, appeared at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, with lyrics by Willie Reale and music by Rob Reale.

Television Dresser was writer/producer for the 1987-1991 comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, created by Jay Tarses. The Hit Parade A decade after the death of a talent agent's only successful client, the agent hires a car thief to impersonate the dead rock star in a comeback concert for the residents of the musician's hometown. Performed in summer 1985 by Manhattan Punch Line at TOMI Theater in New York City. Performed April 1986 as the opening play in the third annual New Dramatists Lunchtime One-Act Play Festival in . West Coast premiere in fall 1993 by Interact Theatre Company at Theater Exchange in North Hollywood. Amnesia A man suffers from amnesia and other difficulties. Originally written to be filmed. First reading July 1987 at the National Playwrights Conference at Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford. Premiered November 1987 at Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. West Coast premiere in December 1989 at Pasadena Playhouse. Alone at the Beach Six single strangers share a summer house in the Hamptons. Performed in spring 1988 at Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. Performed in summer 1989 by the Phoenix Theatre Company at the Masters School in Westchester. Performed May 1992 at Griffin Theatre Company in Chicago. Performed June 1993 as part of Bay Street Theater Festival in Sag Harbor. Splitsville One-act. A young Florida couple seek jobs in a sinister new theme park being built across the street from their home. Performed May 1988 by Primary Stages Company at 45th Street Theater in New York City. Performed in 1986 by Levin Gheater Company at Douglass College in New Brunswick. Performed January 1991 at Primary Stages in New York City. Performed in winter 1992–1993 at Way Off Broadway Playhouse in Santa Ana. Bed and Breakfast One-act. Two American couples vacation near England's Stonehenge. Performed May 1993 as part of Ensemble Theater's Marathon of one-act plays. Performed July 1993 by Renegade Theater Company in New York as part of "An Evening of One-Act Comedies". Premiered April 1995 at Humana Festival. Southern California premiere May 1997 at Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Over 40 productions in Germany. Premiered April 1997 at Humana Festival. Performed February 1998 at Playwrights Horizons. Performed summer 1998 at CATF. A shy driver struggles with his attraction to an attractive female hitchhiker. Premiered summer 1999 directed by Melia Bensussen at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Performed summer 2000 at CATF. Premiered spring 2001 at Humana Festival. Workshopped summer 2001 at CATF. Premiered fall 2002 at Northlight Theatre outside Chicago. Performed October 2003 at John Houseman Theater in New York (off-Broadway). Performed summer 2004 at CATF. A solo audience member enters an office setting and finds that they are playing the role of a newly hired employee. The audience member interacts with the computer while the voices of a boss and co-workers come from the intercom, involving the audience member in a storyline of purported scandal and corruption. Eventually the audience member "must make a pivotal decision about whom to trust," based on the voices and their interactions with the computer. Two female housecleaners scheme with their shady manager to achieve a better life for themselves. The Pursuit of Happiness The second play in the Happiness Trilogy. Performed at Merrimack Repertory Theatre. A View of the Harbor The third play in the Happiness Trilogy. A young man brings his wealthy girlfriend to meet his eccentric family at the rural home where he grew up, and buried secrets come to light. Dresser wrote the book for the musical. Premiered June 2, 2010 at the Loeb Drama Center of the American Repertory Theater after previews starting May 14. Trouble Cometh Two executives throw around different ideas for a reality TV show, leading to the blurring between fact and fiction. Premiered May 16, 2015 at the San Francisco Playhouse after previews starting May 12.