Creative Writing Program
Department of English
65-30 Kissena Blvd.
Flushing, NY 11367

718-997-4600

Unisphere photo by Rik Panganiban; other photos by Charles Martin

Professor Richard Schotter

Klapper 705, 718-997-4715
shotbag@optonline.net

Richard Schotter’s full-length plays--Medicine Show, Benya the King, The Wood Dancer, Taking Stock and The Sussman Variations-- have been performed in New York, around the U.S. and in Europe. An opera based on The Wood Dancer (music by Jerome Hughes) was performed at Next Move Theatre in New York in 1996. He has been an “Obie” Award nominee and received a CAPS grant and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s Berman Playwriting Award (for Benya the King). In addition to his work as a playwright, he is a lyricist and an alumnus of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop where his short musical, Duet for Shy People (Music by Michael Kosarin), was first performed in 1993. Duet for Shy People has since been performed at the Westside Theatre in New York, the 1999 Boston Theatre Marathon and the Williamstown Theatre Festival; it was a winner of the ETC Orlando’s 1994 “Spring Sing” competition. His short plays, The Duke, The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Spot and The River have been performed at the Boston Theatre Marathon and at regional theatres across the country. With composer Michael Kosarin he has written a musical of Anne of Green Gables Mr. Schotter has written lyrics for the PBS children’s series, The Puzzle Place and co-authored with his wife, Roni, the children’s book, There’s a Dragon About: A Winter’s Revel. He holds a PhD in Dramatic Literature from Columbia University and has been a Fulbright Scholar, an editor of The Drama Review, Literary Manager of the American Place Theatre and a Playwright-in-Residence at the Jewish Repertory Theatre. In addition to being Professor of English at Queens College he has been, for the past ten years, Visiting Professor of Playwriting at Boston University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program.