Richard Nelson is a playwright and librettist who wrote the books for the musicals James Joyce's The Dead – for which he won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical - and the Broadway version of Chess.
He received the Olivier Award for Best Play for Goodnight Children Everywhere and in 2008, Nelson was honored with the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award, naming him a Grand Master of American Theater. Nelson has co-translated (with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) and directed a production of Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country which is running on the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Main Stage through August 19th.
