Richard Dresser's plays have appeared in New
York, regional theatre and Europe. They include the widely produced Rounding
Third (which was made into a film starring John C. McGinley and Garret Dillahunt)
and Below the Belt (filmed as Human Error). A number of his plays
started at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville
including Alone at the
Beach, Below the
Belt, Gun-Shy, Wonderful World and many short pieces. Other produced plays: Our
Shrinking Shrinking World, The Last Days of Mickey and Jean, Something
in the Air, The Downside, Better Days, Trouble Cometh, Closure
and You Might Already Be a Winner! Dresser’s trilogy of plays about happiness
in America includes Augusta, The Pursuit of Happiness and A View
of the Harbor. He wrote the book for the musicals Johnny Baseball (about
the curse of the Red Sox) and Good Vibrations, the Beach Boys Broadway musical.
His novel It Happened Here came out in 2020 and predicted everything that
has happened in the USA up until Tuesday. It was later made into a top-ranked podcast
starring John Turturro, Edie Falco and Tony Shalhoub. Dresser is president (and
a founding member) of the Writers Guild Initiative, which does writing workshops
with marginalized populations all over the country.
