Richard Nelson

He told me about some bloke who was sick and then got well - by placing a poem by William Blake in his shirt pocket . . . Heading for the West Country by train, an actor takes the scenic route from Waterloo to spend a weekend with an old friend. He recalls staying there one summer with his late partner Michael, another actor. Glad to be alive but uncertain of his future, he shares stories and his thoughts about Shakespeare, friends, his career and the trials of his own health. Richard Nelson's funny and compelling monologue opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2024.

Summer, 1957. The streets of Greenwich Village sizzle with the insistent rhythm of jazz. Accompanied by their grandmother, two teenage sisters from the country visit their married cousin in the city. Soon, the young women have embarked on their own private missions involving love, a forgotten child, and a lost mother. Set against the bustling backdrop of New York at mid-century, FRANNY'S WAY is a sensual, provocative ode to desire, longing, and the bittersweet collision of youth and adulthood. "Boundaries warp and melt in the dense urban heat that pervades FRANNY'S WAY, Richard Nelson's sensitively drawn portrait of love in the age of J D Salinger. The lines between childhood and adulthood blur disorientingly for the three generations of characters gathered in a cramped apartment in Greenwich Village at the height of summer in the 1950s ... Mr Nelson is again exploring a shadowy sexuality with which some theatergoers may not be entirely at ease ... FRANNY'S WAY is a wry, rueful and forgiving look at the ways people turn to one another for solace when they feel they have lost their bearings. Sex, as the interplay among the characters gently and insistently reminds you, may be a primal drive, but it doesn't always follow a straight course. Mr Nelson continues to give compassionate and insightful life to such erotic waywardness." -Ben Brantley, The New York Times "... one of the deftest achievements of Nelson's taut script is his crafting a dialogue of indirection. Hurts and jealousies roil beneath petty arguments over hogging time in the bathroom. Primal longings for affection well up in comments about the steamy jazz wafting in from a club beneath the window." -Alisa Solomon, Village Voice

"I am more than what has happened to me."With the world's politics in a mess, with an American President leading that charge, American playwright, Richard Nelson, wrote and directed a play for Theater on Podil in Kyiv, Ukraine. Throughout the ten weeks of rehearsals for When the Hurlyburly's Done, he kept a diary. Day after day he was inspired by his six young actresses, some as young as twenty-one, and so they had lived half their lives in wartime. They laughed and cried as the play, their characters, their lives and the war entwined. An inspiring and very human story about making art when everything else feels out of one's control.

A double volume that collects two of the final installments from Tony Award-winning playwright and director Richard Nelson's critically-acclaimed "Rhinebeck Panorama" play cycle.Begun over 12 years ago, each play in Nelson's intricate and moving play cycle captures a specific snapshot in time in the lives of three families from a small upstate New York village, from the Apple family, to the Gabriels, and now the Michaels--a family with deep roots in the world of modern dance.The Michaels: Conversations During Difficult Times takes place in the kitchen of Rose Michael, a celebrated choreographer. A meal is prepared, modern dances are rehearsed, and dinner is eaten--all amidst conversations about art, death, family, politics, and the state of America.What Happened?: The Michaels Abroad brings the cycle to a close as the Michaels find themselves in Angers, France in September 2021, attending a student dance festival and crawling out from under the deadly pandemic, which turned life as they knew it upside down.

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into the higher education sector, academics are grappling with an identity crisis. Academic Identity in the Age of AI explores the impact of AI on the role of the academic, examines ethical considerations, and envisions the future of higher education academics in the AI era. Delving into the evolving landscape of higher education and its intersection with the rapid developments in generative artificial intelligence, Dr. Richard Nelson presents a comprehensive analysis of these crucial topics and offers insights into navigating the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital transformation of higher education with a key focus on the changing perception of the academic at this time. Chapters explore the historical context of academic identity and the challenges posed by the modern university, emphasising the shifting roles of academics and the complex impact of AI in academia on teaching, assessment and administrative tasks. Featuring compelling case studies illustrating how universities are harnessing the power of AI to innovate in teaching, learning, and research, Academic Identity in the Age of AI offers valuable insights for educators, institution leaders, and policymakers seeking to navigate the ever-changing terrain of AI in education.

In the midst of war, spending nine weeks directing his play, Conversations in Tusculum, in Kyiv, Ukraine, American playwright and director Richard Nelson kept a diary. Here the mundane, the artistic, and the ongoing war entwine in a visceral account of making theatre in a different world at a time and a place where it has come to have a very special meaning.A profoundly moving, exceptional, essential story, full of humor, self-questioning, confusions, doubts, fears, heartbreak, and joy, set in the middle of a beautiful, magical city under attack."In this deeply stirring chronicle of making theater in a time of war, Richard Nelson deploys the same sensibility that shapes his plays, moving from curiosity to empathy to invaluable insight. Drama, for Nelson, has always been about creating an endlessly evolving conversation - on the stage, yes, but also with the time and place and people it reflects. Here, that dialogue echoes with a thrilling new urgency. Nelson's Kyiv diaries radiate hope for the endurance and necessity of theater." - Ben Brantley"I have never read a theatrical diary before like Richard Nelson's. In describing the process of staging his play, Conversations in Tusculum, in Kyiv, Mr Nelson gives a deeply moving picture of the grit, determination and heroism required to create theatre in a time of war: " - Michael Billington

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

"I would want NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS] to be seen by anyone interested in Balanchine and his choreography... The world of Russian emigres is Chekhovian in both intimacy and intricacy." Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times "Paints a group portrait of artists for whom time is forever out of joint... NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS] summons both a sense of place and displacement with such naturalness that you forget that you're watching titans at play."Ben Brantley, The New York Times "An engrossing works that transports Chekhov to the threshold of the Cold War. The country house isn't in the Russian provinces but in Westport, Connecticut, and it's 1948. The characters are exiles whose childhoods on large estates ended with the czar's rue, decades earlier... Though they talk a lot, they don't just talk; they are managing, midwifing, or directly making some of the twentieth century's greatest art."Jesse Green, New York "I felt as if I had just experienced a beautifully detailed novel..."Roma Torre, NY1 "Inspired." Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg "Nelson has created a beautifully moving look at a dark time in America. And he] skillfully encapsulates the complexities of these emigres lives as they struggle with artistic ambitions, memories of past loves, yearning for their long-lost homeland, and current-day political issues."Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press

"The R S C and the Moscow Art Theatre have given us one of the most delightful collaborations of two minds, if not since Beaumont and Fletcher, then since Brenton and Hare were hard at the likes of BRASSNECK and PRAVDA.... A two-hour glasnost extravaganza... Extremely funny."Time Out (London) "MISHA'S PARTY is set in Moscow during the 1991 coup. The play, though isn't political; it simply shows a family of Russians gathering in a hotel restaurant to celebrate the 60th birthday of a man with an untidy past... The spirit of Chekhov is very much alive in the regrets, sadnesses and farcical nature of this interesting new play."The Daily Telegraph "Top notch."Sunday Express "A richly Chekhovian piece about exile and homecoming, and about regrouping of a dysfunctional family in a tottering regime."International Herald Tribune "In his deft, unostentatious way Nelson was written a robust, healing comedy whose subjects include the pull of the past, the power of unreason and the problems of adjusting to an alien culture."The London Times "A forceful...comedy of manners."Evening Standard "Touching and novel, the play brims with the milk of human folly and a sense of the primacy of private feeling over public events. This is a play for thought as well as amusement."New York Post "MISHA'S PARTY is a cause for celebration."Plays and Players

"THE MICHAELS is as hopeful as it is heartbreaking."Ben Brantley, The New York Times "Nelson builds characters who are rich in spirit and soul and sets them in motion like tops."Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker "Transfixing."David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter "A tenderly moving drama about a modern dance choreographer facing mortality, and the effect of this brilliant, challenging woman on the people around her."Diane Snyder, Time Out "In its distinctive way it edges into and out of so many emotional territories and registers; it shows how the epic and the everyday can be close cousins; and how the mundane and shattering can unfold as you wash a glass, or bake a quiche."Tim Teeman, Daily BeastFive Stars "Dinner is prepared, songs are sung, stories are told, dances are rehearsed, and the meal is eaten-all amidst conversations about art, death, family, dance, politics, how the world sees America... The play portrays a modesty and an enduring faith in the validity of simple human interaction."David Walters, New York Theater GuideFive Stars "Immensely rewarding."Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review "THE MICHAELS seduces with the details, caught on the fly, of lives well-lived in spite of everything. The play is a balm for troubled spirits."David Barbour, L & S America "Magnificent." Christopher Byrne, Gay City News

Critics Pick "Extraordinary... Nelson's] stripped-down dramaturgy asks us to care about character more than story, and to see the largest matters in the smallest details."Jesse Green, The New York Times "In this beautiful capstone work, the sense is not so much a resolution as a dissolving; the characters of WHAT HAPPENED? have become unmoored, as if the isolation of the pandemic has caused some permanent psychic dislocation."Peter Marks, The Washington PostFive Stars "WHAT HAPPENED? shines a fierce light on COVID's devastating impact..."Elysa Gardner, New York Stage ReviewFive Stars "Playwright Richard Nelson completes what he calls his Rhinebeck Panorama with WHAT HAPPENED?: THE MICHAELS ABROAD which] might be the most powerful of them all... As with the other installments in the series, WHAT HAPPENED? will likely be widely produced..."Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review "This is a play about loss, the inevitable changes wrought by time and circumstance, and finding a way to go on, however haltingly. We may never know fully what happened, but we do go on, and sharing this reality with this family-transforming life into art-lets us know that whatever we went through all those months, we were not alone." Christopher Byrne, Gay City News "WHAT HAPPENED?: THE MICHAELS ABROAD is] something of a socio-document that can and should be studied for years to come by those who want to know what life was life 'during the pandemic.'"J K Clarke, Theater Pizzazz "Each new piece of Nelson's series, The Rhinebeck Panorama] has felt like a cool blast of civilization in a world gone mad."David Barbour, Lighting Dimensions

These three plays were written and performed over the memorable summer of 2020. Forced into isolation as the pandemic raged and protests against racism spread after the murder of George Floyd, the Apple Family of Rhinebeck, New York, gather over Zoom to share meals and weather the storms. Together, virtually, they swap jokes, stories and their adventures with grocery shopping and dating; they reveal their depression and fears, they mourn lost friends and even watch a dance performance, as the world outside sputters out of control, amidst anger, illness, and a coming election.With an introduction and afterword by the author.

Critic's Pick "Truly profound... The genius of INCIDENTAL MOMENTS is in how it extends the] social and verbal uneasiness within a family to embrace the most important and divisive subjects of the day."The New York Times***** Five Stars (out of Five) "Beautifully composed."The Guardian (UK) "Virtually perfect."Daily Mail (UK)***** Five Stars (out of Five) "Nelson subtly shines a light on the anger and angst of modern-day America. Underneath their chit-chat, you feel the tide of history turning."The Stage (UK) **** Four Stars. "The piece's unspoken liberalism-real liberalism, which allows for different points of view-is a moving rebuke to our parched, stark times."The Sunday Times (UK) "An achingly poignant trilogy that maps out the existential black hole we seem to have fallen into."The Washington Post "The pieces (the trilogy) will be remembered, mostly, for how they told the story of our feelings while isolated."Chicago Tribune