Richard Greenberg
Richard Greenberg
Richard Greenbergis 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 the South Coast Repertory Theatre, including The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, and Hurrah at Last...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth22 February 1958
CountryUnited States of America
formed seeing time
I was formed by 'The Forsyte Saga' marathon. There was something about seeing all those events telescoped that was unbelievably moving: that sense of time as something that can be tinkered with.
audience dress experience file filing love moment peak people plays seeing start
Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love the moment when you have just the dress rehearsal, when no one's there; that's kind of the peak to me. When people start filing in, I like to file out.
dangerous family good less mean review trained
My friends and family have been so well trained that they know I really mean it when I say that I don't care if the review is good, because that can be as dangerous as when it's bad. It's less demoralizing, but it can be just as confusing.
believe closer possible
When you're writing plays, it's possible to believe you don't have any real world skill. When you're adapting, it is really all about the mechanics, so you feel closer to, I don't know, an accountant or someone who has a body of information. It's not all about temperament.
feels standard time volition
When we watch a play under the standard circumstances, we've lost volition and time is passing. A still play feels like an existential threat.
conveying entire life onstage sort time trying
I'm sort of anti-Aristotelian. I want to get an entire life onstage while conveying a sense of how time feels, how unstoppable it is, and how we don't really know what's going on because as we're trying to weave, it's weaving us.
I like the Mets. I'm interested in the Mets.
months time
It's weird, because I don't feel prolific. I don't write anything for months at a time.
bank people playwright steadily
I want to be a playwright the way people are bank tellers. I want to keep doing it and have it go steadily and smoothly.
commission era hundred scripts
I started in the era when Hollywood reveled in being the most cost-inefficient industry on the planet. They used to commission a hundred scripts for every one they made.
life sort
You do think, if you have your druthers, 'I want to sort of be, not anonymous, but unknown'. But you don't have your druthers in life, do you?
driven surface
Everything on and under the surface is driven by the tides,
came exactly stuff supposed
I came to New York, and it was fascinating and intimidating and yielding, and all the stuff it's supposed to be. But whatever the abstract essence I was seeking, I couldn't find exactly that.
alienation extension people
People talk about alienation in the city. Diners are a place where you feel comfortable, an extension of your house.