Richard Greenberg, award-winning playwright and former East Meadow resident, dies at 67

Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg, whose plays and movie scripts often reflected the Long Island environs in which he grew up, died July 4 at a Manhattan nursing home, of complications from cancer. He was 67.

The East Meadow native prolifically chronicled the often contradictory impulses of the privileged class, in comedy-dramas of manners that led to comparisons with the dry wit of British playwright Noël Coward. Greenbeerg’s typically self-deprecating response to such talk: "Noël Coward’s fantastic, but ... what’s the use of having an American one?"

"I think he knew that he was very talented, but he would never let you know that he knew it," his older brother, Edward Greenberg, of upstate Columbia County, told Newsday. Although Richard would give interviews as necessary to promote his work, he would otherwise shun the spotlight, "That's the kind of person he was. That would embarrass him."

His roughly three dozen plays were mounted at prominent theaters nationwide including Steppenwolf in Chicago and South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California, as well as at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Many premiered Off-Broadway via Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwrights Horizon, and nine original works reached Broadway — along with new books for two Broadway revivals.

Best play award

Greenberg’s 2003 comedy-drama "Take Me Out," about a major league baseball player publicly coming out as gay, won the Tony Award for best play and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in drama. This followed a 1998 Pulitzer nomination for the original Off-Broadway production of "Three Days of Rain," the Broadway revival of which in 2006 starred Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper. Additionally, Greenberg’s "The Assembled Parties" (2013) earned a Tony nomination.

"From his earliest one-acts," wrote playwright-novelist Paul Rudnick in a social-media tribute, "he was a fully formed, witty and supremely intelligent artist, who never condescended to his audience. ... Rich would often write about privileged, educated people, without apology — this was his crowd, and he'd present them with sympathy and precision."

 Yet he had little ego about his work, taking notes even from actors in minor roles. Gene Gabriel, who played a Spanish-speaking ballplayer in "Take Me Out," wrote on social media that, "Early on in rehearsals I approached Rich (with all the hubris of a young knucklehead) [and] I commented that the Spanish was not quite right. ... Instead of telling me to buzz off ... he gathered the three actors who spoke foreign languages in the play ... and asked us how we would convey the message in our native tongues. He promptly rewrote all of our dialogue based on our input and then to my surprise thanked us in the first publication of the play." 

Richard Greenberg was born Feb. 22, 1958, in East Meadow, the younger of two children of Leon Greenberg, an executive with the regional theater and drive-in chain Century Theatres, and homemaker Shirley Greenberg.

His artistic ambitions manifested early. As a child, "He was producing plays on our block" with other kids rather than playing sports, said Edward Greenberg. Raised in a supportive family, Richard performed in East Meadow High School plays, including playing Col. Blake in a production of "M.A.S.H.," and played viola in the school orchestra. He went on to a degree in English in 1980 from Princeton University, where his instructors included Joyce Carol Oates.

Wrote plays in dorm

While working on a graduate degree at Harvard University, he recalled in 2006, he became disaffected toward his studies. "I had stopped attending classes, at night I was acting in a play, and I needed something to do during the day without leaving the dorm. I had written fiction before, but never plays. I thought, ‘Well, I’m in this room, why not write a play?’ So I did. I sent it to Yale Drama School, and they took me, so I went.’ "

While at Yale he wrote "The Bloodletters," about a Long Island teen with a rare — but comical — disease. Off-Broadway’s Ensemble Studio Theatre produced it in 1984 while he was still a student, and the following year he earned both his Master of Fine Arts degree and Newsday’s Oppenheimer Award, presented to the best new American playwright with a work produced in New York or on Long Island. The five-member jury included playwright Edward Albee and playwright-director James Lapine.

His numerous subsequent plays often were set on Long Island or feature Long Islanders. The second act of "Eastern Standard" (1988) is set in the Hamptons, as is "A Naked Girl on the Appian Way" (2005). "The Babylon Line" (2016) literally is titled for the Long Island Rail Road spur, and centers on an adult-education teacher and his students in 1967 Levittown. The 1989 PBS telefilm "Life Under Water," which he adapted from his own South Fork-set play, was shot in Wainscott and Sag Harbor.

"Sometimes I want to go to places I know because it’s such a head start," he said in 2016.

Yet aside from his professional success, said his brother, "One of the things that's been important to me is seeing how his colleagues in theater just really treasured him for his personal attributes as much as his writing." During Richard’s last days in the nursing home, "They visited him constantly. He had wonderful, loyal, devoted friends."

In addition to his brother, Richard Greenberg is survived by a nephew and two grandnephews.

A graveside service was held Monday at New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon. "There will be a celebration of life later this year," his brother said.