Adam Rapp is an award-winning playwright/director, novelist, and filmmaker. He is the author of numerous plays, which include Nocturne (American Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, The Almeida, London, The Traverse, Edinburgh), Faster (Rattlestick), Animals & Print (A.R.T.), Finer Noble Gases (26th Humana Festival, Rattlestick, Edinburgh Fringe, The Bush, London), Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Edge Theatre, NYC), Blackbird (The Bush, London; Edge Theatre), Gompers (Pittsburgh City Theatre, The Arcola, London), Essential Self-Defense (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theatre), American Sligo (Rattlestick), Bingo with the Indians (The Flea), Kindness (Playwrights Horizons), The Metal Children (The Vineyard), The Hallway Trilogy (Rattlestick), The Edge of our Bodies (36th Humana Festival, The Gate, London), Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling (The Atlantic), Wolf in the River (The Flea), The Purple Lights of Jopp
Adam Rapp is an award-winning playwright/director, novelist, and filmmaker. He is the author of numerous plays, which include Nocturne (American Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, The Almeida, London, The Traverse, Edinburgh), Faster (Rattlestick), Animals & Print (A.R.T.), Finer Noble Gases (26th Humana Festival, Rattlestick, Edinburgh Fringe, The Bush, London), Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Edge Theatre, NYC), Blackbird (The Bush, London; Edge Theatre), Gompers (Pittsburgh City Theatre, The Arcola, London), Essential Self-Defense (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theatre), American Sligo (Rattlestick), Bingo with the Indians (The Flea), Kindness (Playwrights Horizons), The Metal Children (The Vineyard), The Hallway Trilogy (Rattlestick), The Edge of our Bodies (36th Humana Festival, The Gate, London), Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling (The Atlantic), Wolf in the River (The Flea), The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois (Southcoast Rep, The Atlantic), and Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf, Scott Rudin Productions at Barrow Street Theatre), for which he won Chicago's Jeff Award for Best New Work, an OBIE, and was named a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. His production of Finer Noble Gases received a Fringe First Award from the 2006 Edinburgh Festival, where he was also named Best Newcomer by The List. That production went on to be performed at London's Bush Theatre. His most recent play, The Sound Inside, which was directed by David Cromer and starred Marylouise Parker, premiered at the 2018 Williamstown Theatre Festival, and then transferred to Broadway, where it enjoyed a six-month sold-out run at Studio 54. The Sound Inside was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play. Parker won the Tony for Best Actress. He is currently in rehearsals for the musical adaptation of The Outsiders, for which he penned the book. The Outsiders opens at the Jacobs Theater in April.
His playwriting honors include Boston's Elliot Norton Award, The Helen Merrill Prize, The 2006 Princess Grace Statue, a Lucille Lortel Playwright's Fellowship, The Benjamin H. Danks Award, the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Award, and most recently, a 2021 Arts and Letters Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters.
He is also the author of thirteen novels, including Under the Wolf, Under the Dog, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and for which he received the Schneider Family Book Award from the American Library Association, Punkzilla, which was named a 2006 Printz Honor Book, and 33 Snowfish, which Booklist cited as one of the 50 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time. Know Your Beholder was published by Little, Brown & Company in 2015. His new novel, Wolf at the Table, is also forthcoming from Little, Brown & Company this March.
As a filmmaker he wrote and directed Winter Passing, starring Ed Harris, Zooey Deschanel, and Will Ferrell, which was produced by Focus Features and was an Official Selection of the 2005 Toronto Film Festival. His second feature, Blackbird, which he adapted from his play, stars Paul Sparks, Gillian Jacobs, and Michael Shannon. Blackbird premiered at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival, received the Best Narrative Feature at the Charlotte Film Festival, as well as a Special Achievement in Directing award from the Florida International Film Festival. His third feature, Loitering With Intent, written by Michael Godere and Ivan Martin, stars Sam Rockwell, Marissa Tomei, Brian Geraghty, Godere, and Martin. Loitering With Intent was an Official Selection of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival and was released by The Orchard.
For television, he has written and produced for The L Word (Showtime), In Treatment (HBO), Flesh & Bone (Starz), and Vinyl (HBO). He served as Executive Producer and Co-Showrunner for both The Looming Tower (Hulu), and American Rust (Showtime). He is currently Showrunning Season Two of American Rust - American Rust: Broken Justice for Amazon MGM Studios.
Born in Chicago and raised in nearby Joliet, Illinois, Mr. Rapp attended Clarke University in Dubuque, lowa, where he was captain of the basketball team. After graduating he spent six years working in book publishing before being able to support himself as a writer. In 2001 he completed the graduate playwriting program at Juilliard. He has taught at the Yale School of Drama, where he served as the Associate Chair of the Playwriting Program, and Wesleyan University.
Mr. Rapp has lived and worked in New York City since May of 1991. He currently splits his time between NYC and upstate New York.
