Robin Rice

Author of over 70 plays (22 full-length), produced from Off-Broadway to Hollywood, London to South Africa, Mongolia to South Korea. Publishers include Samuel French, Original Works, Smith & Kraus and Applause. I most often focus on women's struggles to attain their dreams, though stories concerning the environment and social issues run a close second. My characters include inanimate objects as well as pandas, cockroaches, sparrows, bowerbirds and the like, and of course humans. Magical realism is usually threaded through and laughs find their way into the most serious of subjects. My New England roots form a lovely canvas, enlivened by passionate activism that was awakened at Antioch College. Colors are provided by two children, a husband with a background entirely different from mine, different jobs, homes in many places (topped off by years in New York City) and decades as a visual artist. I'm a lifetime member of the Dramatists Guild and a member of Manhattan Oracles, 29th Street Playwrights Cooperative, The Playwrights Circle, The League of Professional Theatre Women, The International Centre for Women Playwrights, Rebel Playhouse (board). Most of my scripts are on the New Play Exchange:https://newplayexchange.org/users/707/robin-rice

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
http://www.RobinRicePlaywright.com
FB:https://www.facebook.com/RobinRiceDesigner;https://www.facebook.com/RobinRicePlaywright; https://www.facebook.com/RobinRiceLichtig/  
@RobinRiceWrites
 
MORE ABOUT ME
I love collaboration. I was house manager of the Williamstown Theatre Festival in my home town during high school. Check the "love theater" box. I majored in political science in undergraduate school (check "activism" box), worked as a newspaper reporter for years (check "writer" box), then went back to school to get certified to teach art (check "visual art" box). That segued into being a full-time printmaker for decades. The circle closed when I designed the set for a large (200 people on stage) community theater group that produces a show every year to raise money for high school scholarships. I was cast as Judy Garland singing "Be a Clown" - gulp! (Notice I don't have a box named "performer" to check.) This gave me access to the script and I found it weak. So the next year (singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" as Cindi Lauper in a boustier - yikes!) I volunteered for script committee. I went on to be a producer of this show, practically writing the entire thing myself that year. It was a hit, which gave me the chutzpah to go ahead and get an M.A. in playwriting and to move from New Jersey to New York City - the start of this rollercoaster ride. What I love about theater is how collaborative it is in the greater sense. In crafting plays I use my artistic and musical (check "music" box after raising two musician children) sensibilities a great deal. All this background collaborates on the story. And then there are the directors, actors, light and sound people, set and costume designers... Is anything in the world as collaborative as theater? 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I just finished (Nov. 2020) "Phantasy," a long one-act (five women) which was inspired by Irene Fornes. I took a look at the women in my full-length "Women w/o Walls," wondering what happened to them before the longer story. Quite a ride, including a character who is the George Washington Bridge. An actor offered to host a table reading on Zoom, actors volunteered, and suddenly I'm not hating Zoom quite as much as I did. Last month Point Park University presented a play I wrote in quarantine, "Climbing the Good Walls," at Pittsburgh Playhouse (with 18 actors playing 21 parts!). In March, 2021, 29th Street Playwrights Cooperative will host a public reading of my play about the redtail hawks in NYC, "Pecking Order." This play takes a look at haves and have nots. Meanwhile, I'm going to dive back into rewrites of a very tough, autobiographical full-length, "Suki Livingston Opens Like a Parachute."

KEYWORDS
feminism, ecology, environment, lesbian, Jewish, family, historical, political, nature, animals, pandemic, climate, science fiction, radio plays, period, holiday, motherhood, body issues