Richard Willett writes coming-of-age stories, whatever the genre -- or the age of the main character. His characters are often on the outside looking in -- you may not even like them at first, but by the end they'll break your heart. He was born in Hollywood but grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and spent several years as a playwright in New York City before recently returning to Los Angeles. He is an optioned screenwriter currently working on his eighth paid writing assignment. His screenplay THE FLID SHOW was a semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowships competition (top 50 out of more than 7,000 scripts) and has a unique star attached -- Mat Fraser, Paul the Illustrated Seal from AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAK SHOW. The script is now being shopped to directors and female actors for the strong female lead and other roles. Richard's script 9/10 was also in the Nicholl Top 50, in addition to being an Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition semifinalist. His stage plays have been presented off-Broadway and at theaters across the country. Other honors include an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship; a Tennessee Williams Scholarship; grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts (among others); designation as a finalist for the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards and both the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Episodic Lab; and showcasing with a featured screenplay in the IFP Market in New York. He has three new stage plays scheduled to open in 2022-23, in Los Angeles, New York, and London. ?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1
DRAMA DEPARTMENT Budget: $1M - $5M | Drama When a gay screenwriter who’s dismissive of the MeToo movement is subpoenaed to testify on behalf of a friend who’s suing their high school drama teacher over an affair he had with her when she was underage, he winds up taking over his teacher’s class and falling for a student himself.
AND CALL ME IN THE MORNING: THE STORY OF THALIDOMIDE Drama In this limited series based on true events, six very different people around the world in the early 1960s – doctors, scientists, mothers, fathers -- are confronted with the birth of deformed babies and struggle to find out why this has happened, eventually pitting them against the pharmaceutical giant whose prescription medication caused the epidemic.
MY BROTHER'S KILLER Budget: $1M - $5M | Thriller A criminal law student is assisting his profiler professor in a study of serial killers when a local murder spree ramps up and threatens to unearth long-buried memories of his late brother, who was himself a notorious killer.
THE NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME FAMILY Budget: $1M - $5M | Comedy Among other myths, homophobic right-wingers say gay parents will inevitably turn their kids gay, right? Well, Bert and Martin are about to go on statewide TV to prove them wrong. The only problem: They're beginning to suspect all four of their kids are gay.
DESIGNATED DRINKER Comedy ⋄ Drama In this hour-long TV pilot, Annie, a tightly wrapped accountant with an empty nest and a husband losing interest, and her new best friend Brian, a gay N.Y. playwright forced back to L.A. to escort his wacko aging parents into oblivion, belly up in a legendary Hollywood bar with a colorful assortment of drinking buddies coping with their own deferred dreams and absurd new realities.
9/10 Budget: $100K - $1M | Drama Four interwoven stories set in the World Trade Center on the night before September 11, 2001.
THE FLID SHOW Budget: $1M - $5M | Drama A charismatic, belligerent English nightclub singer, born with flipper-like arms because his pregnant mother took the drug thalidomide, believes his deformity will keep him from ever finding love -- until he falls for a pretty young American doctor, with intimacy issues of her own, and must confront his own dark past in order to win her.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowships Top 50 twice
Austin Film Festival semifinalist
Sundance Screenwriters Lab finalist
Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship
Tennessee Williams Scholarship
Sundance Episodic Lab finalist
Page International Screenwriting Awards finalist