Sobre l'autor

Richard France Boston, 05/05/1938

Richard France (born May 5, 1938) is an American playwright, author, and film and drama critic. He is a recognized authority on the stage work of American filmmaker Orson Welles. His publication, The Theatre of Orson Welles, which received a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Award in 1979, has been called "a landmark study" and has been translated into Japanese. His 1990 companion volume, Orson Welles on Shakespeare has been praised by Welles critics and biographers.

In 2006, his play, Obediently Yours, Orson Welles, premiered at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, France, and has since been translated into several languages. The Spanish production, which began in Barcelone in 2008, toured for over two years, before its conclusion at the Teatro Bellas Artes in November 2010. Also in 2010, a second French-language production opened at the Atelier Théâtre Jean Vilar in Louvain-la-Neuve (where it played as Moi, Orson Welles et Don Quichotte, in a translation written by its star, Armand Delcampe). The Orson Welles role has been performed by such distinguished actors as Jean-Claude Druout (France), Armand Delcamp (Belgium), Jose Maria Pou (Spain) and Jaroslaw Gajewski (Poland). The Spanish-language text, Su seguro servidor, Orson Welles, was one of three finalists for the 2009 Premios MAX Award and published by Arola Editions.In 2011 it was featured as one of three plays selected by Oberon Books (London) for its anthology Hollywood Legends: 'Live' On Stage, with an introduction by Simon Callow. 

In addition to its multiple translations and international stagings, Obediently Yours, Orson Welles and actor José (Josep) Maria Pou's enactment of Welles in Barcelona-where the play's Spanish translation, adapted and directed by film scholar, professor and screenwriter Esteve Riambau for Spanish- and Castilian-speaking lands as Su seguro servidor, Orson Welles, premiered at the Theatre Romea on 30 June 2008 as part of the Festival Grec- were the subject of the feature-length documentary Màscares(Masks, 2009), which premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film follows Pou as he prepares to take on the title role in Obediently Yours .... It received several Broadway options in 1997-98.

Other works in France's playwriting canon include:

• Pulse and Glare, 1962, the California Club, San Francisco, California
• The First Word and the Last, Open Space Theatre Workshop, London (August 1968) and Mikery Theatre, Amsterdam (October 1968)
• Don't You Know It's Raining, Dallas Theatre Center, Dallas, Texas ( August 1970); four Broadway options (1960-71)
• A Day in the Life, for which France received his first National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Prize, Salt City Playhouse, Syracuse, New York, 1974, Midwest Playwrights Lab, 1976, and Actors Alley Theatre, Los Angeles, California, 1978
• An End in Sight, No Smoking Playhouse, New York City, 1981

Several of France's plays have also been published. They include:

• The Magic Shop and Fathers and Sons, Baker's Plays, 1972
• The Adventure of the Dying Detective, I.E. Clark Publications, 1974
• The First Word and the Last, I.E. Clark Publications, 1974
• The Image of Elmo Doyle, Best Short Plays, 1979 (Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1977; Chilton Books, Radnor, PA 1979)
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Baker's Plays, 1974
• The Image of Elmo Doyle, Chilton/Haynes, 1979
• Feathertop, Baker's Plays, 1979. In September 1998, it was staged in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as an opera.
• Station J, Irvington Publishers, 1982
• Don't You Know It's Raining, Arion Press, 1984
• An End in Sight, Arion Press, 1989
• Obediently Yours, Orson Welles, Oberon Books, 2011