Adam Rapp (Book) 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 & Plants (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 Theatre), 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 Theatre), The Purple Lights Of Joppa Illinois (Southcoast Rep, The Atlantic), and Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf Theatre Company 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 most recent play, The Sound Inside, received its world premiere at the 2018 Williamstown Theatre Festival and was named on of The New York Times best plays of 2018.
In addition to helming his own work, he directed the world premiere of Karen O’s psycho opera, Stop The Virgens, for The Creators Project at St. Ann’s Warehouse, which was then selected for The Vivid Live Festival, where it sold out the Sydney Opera House for six performances. He also directed Sam Shepard’s True West at Actors Theatre of Louisville, which went on to be named one of the 2012 Best Moments in Culture by Louisville’s N.P.R. Affiliate, WFPL. His production of Finer Noble Gases garnered a Fringe First Award at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he received The List’s Best Newcomer Prize.
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 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Award. He is the author of eleven 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 named as one of the 50 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time. His most recent novel, Know Your Beholder, was published by Little Brown (2015). Fum was published by Candlewick Press (2018). He also wrote the graphic novels, Ball-Peen Hammer (2009), and Decelerate Blue (2016), for First Second Books.
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 most recently served as an Executive Producer for The Looming Tower (Hulu).