Words on Water Festival Curator

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Rick Wilson is a writer, producer, actor, director, composer, and educator. His writing has been published in The Cape Cod Times, Screendoor Review, ImageOutWrite, IndieTheatreNow, and anthologized in Stonewall’s Legacy(Local Gems Press), Stonewall 50 (Sibling Rivalry Press), and No Bars and a Dead Battery (Owl Canyon Press). His plays and musicals have been performed and acknowledged in the U.S and Canada, including The Declaration: a parable of same-sex marriage (Robert Moss Theatre, NYC; Fully Flighted Productions, NJ; Eventide Arts, Cape Cod Finalist; Oklahoma Federation of Writers, Best Play), Too Much, Too Far, Too Soon (Midtown International Theatre Festival, Box Office Award). His Hockey: the musical!, co-written with former student Justin DeMarco, had two different productions in Toronto and is now an official artifact of The Hockey Hall of Fame. His “Ode to Lifeguarding” won First Place Poetry in Blue Institute’s inaugural Words on Water competition. 

Rick is an OBA-nominated producer/director for The Greatest Pirate Story Never Told, which played at the Snapple Theatre Center in New York before touring over 150 performing arts centers, Renaissance Faires, college campuses, schools, hospitals, and parks across the nation. He produced the New York premiere of Margaret Dulaney’s The Hummingbird’s Tour.  His production of William Finn’s Falsettos received Best Revival with Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, and he is a two-time Planet Activist award recipient. Broadway involvements include Peter and the Star Catcher, and Vanya, Sonya, Masha, and Spike (TONY Award, Best Play). Recent directing credits include the critically-acclaimed New York premiere of Jay Paul Deratany’s Haram! Iran! and the comedic one-man show, A Brief History of Colonization, written and performed by Kal Mansoor. 

As an actor, Rick has played opposite the late James Gandolfini and been directed by the legendary Stanley Kramer. Favorite acting credits include Same Time, Next Year (Lantern Theatre), Doolittle in My Fair Lady and King Arthur in Camelot (Broadhollow Theatre Company, Long Island), Charles Dickens in The Greatest Pirate Holiday Spectaculaar! (Snapple Theatre Center, NYC), and Mr. Hollander in The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel. Rick is also a pianist who has music directed over 50 musicals and has performed regularly with Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. 

Rick will be moderating the talkbacks with Blue Institute’s winning writers and has served as moderator and host for numerous galas, panels, and fundraisers, including Playwrights for a Cause (featuring world premiers by Winter Miller, John Patrick Shanley, Neil Labute). He hosted Long Island’s Pride for Youth 20th Anniversary gala, Long Island Crisis Center’s Let’s Walk, Let’s Talk, a virtual walk for suicide awareness, and he is currently in production for PFY’s Elevate-Enlighten-Empower fundraiser, featuring Lea Delaria, and Guess Who’s Teaching Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, a conversation with Karen and Kat Kramer with New York Teachers, presented by East Williston Teachers Association. 

Rick is a conference presenter and workshop leader who teaches writing, literature, and theatre at The Wheatley School in Old Westbury, NY, where he has been PTO Teacher of the Year, a Harvard Club Distinguished Educator, an adjunct of Syracuse University, and a TONY-nominee for Excellence in Theatrical Education. 

A former ocean lifeguard, Rick is an avid lover of the ocean and a champion of other writers and actors.