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Genre: Whodunit -- Mystery / Thriller |
Live Fast, Die Young & Leave A Good-Looking Corpse: A Memoir of the 1970s
by Richard Vetere,
$5.99 ebook, $14.95 paperback
Richard Vetere offers a collection of 8 short stories that form a memoir of life in New York and its boroughs for a teenager with long greasy hair, blue jeans and jacket, and brown suede shows – a tossup between the poet Lord Byron and Paul Newman’s character in The Hustler. Buy and/or Read More
I, Human -
A Whodunit Award Winner
by Richard Vetere,
$3.99 ebook, $14.95 paperback
A genetically altered space traveler is awakened by one of the ship’s androids when something goes wrong. Is someone trying to sabotage his mission to populate a far-flung planet? Aside from himself and his co-pilot and the four androids, there’s no one else on the Aristotle. Buy and/or Read More
The Authors Guild did a Spotlight on Richard Vetere and I,Human. Click here to read:
Richard Vetere's screenplay Caravaggio won the 2021 Golden Palm Award for Best Screenplay at the Beverly Hills International Film Festival.
Meet The Author
Richard Vetere is a well-known author, screenwriter, playwright, actor, director, and educator.
Fiction
Vetere’s first novel The Third Miracle published first by Carrol & Graf and then by Simon & Schuster was named one of the best debut novels of the year 1997 by Library Journal and garnered rave reviews. Vetere was hired by Francis Ford Coppola to co-write the screenplay adaptation.
His novel The Writers Afterlife was published in 2014 by Three Rooms Press to a rave review by Publishers Weekly. Hisnovel Baroque aboutCaravaggio’s roommate Mario Minnitiwas published in 2010 by Bordighera Press. His novel Champagne and Cocaine was published by Three Rooms Press in May 2016.
Vetere was nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction in 2013 and again in 2014.
Film
Over the years Vetere has written screenplays and adaptations for Paramount, Warner Bros, New Line and Zoetrope.
His first feature film Vigilante is based on his original screenplay. It stars Robert Forester and Fred Williamson. Vigilante, released in 1983, became a blockbuster movie overnight making it the 20th grossing picture in 1983 and was just now re-released in Blu-Ray. It was named “a cult classic” by critic David Denby in the New York Times and one of the “best indies of the 1980’s” by BAM.
Vetere also wrote the screenplay adaptation of his stage play How to Go Out on a Date in Queens released in 2006 which based on his one act play. It stars Jason Alexander and Ron Pearlman.
His new short film You & Me co-written and produced with director Eddie Shieh has been accepted in over twenty-one film festivals around the world. His short film You & Me was selected by 25 Film Festivals in 2013 and 2014.
His screenplay adaptation of his ten minute play The Kids Menu starring Vincent Pastore is already appearing in festivals and Vetere was recently nominated for Best Original Story by the New York International Film Festival.
In 2012 he was elected Council Member for the WGA East for a two year term.
In 2018 he got a grant from the Russo Brothers Film Forum to write, direct and produce the documentary Where Are We Now? The Italian American Today which has won awards for Best Documentary in several film festivals already in 2019.
Television
Vetere was staff writer for CBS show Dellaventura in 1999 starring Danny Aielo.
He was Story Editor for ABC and Disney for Threat Matrix in 2003.
He hired to write an original TV pilot The Wonder for Warner Bros and CBS with George Clooney as his executive producer.
Vetere wrote the most viewed teleplay ever shown on CBS TV. It was The Marriage Fool, anadaptation of his own stage play of the same title. It stars Walter Matthau, Carol Burnet and John Stamos. It was released as a feature film on DVD under the title Love After Death.
His teleplay adaptation of his stage play, Hale The Hero! about the first American spy Nathan Hale, was produced on A&E as part of the General Motors Playwright’s Theater starring Elisabeth Shue and was given rave reviews by The LA Times and the NY Daily News.
Theater
In 2018 his play No More Writers was produced by New Jersey Rep.
In 2017 his play Lady Macbeth and Her Lover opened at the Studio Theater at the Directors Company in NYC to rave reviews.
In 2017 he was commissioned by the Pocket Theater in Cyprus to write Clytemnestra in Hades and it was produced in Cyrus in Greek.
In 2017 Richard Vetere short play Trump Is Not Cool was produced at Primary Stages as part of their Election Day Series.
In 2017 his play Girl In The Wall was produced in an Equity Workshop production by Aaron Grant.
In 2016 his stage play Square One, which was commissioned by the Culture Project NYC, was chosen as one of the best developed in the PD Workshop Unit at the Actors Studio.
In 2016 his play about James Agee and Delmore Schwartz Poet on a String was produced at the Storm Warnings Theater in Maine.
In 2015 his play Lady Macbeth and Her Lover was produced in the NY International Fringe Theater Festival in NYC.
In 2013 The New Perspectives Theater in NYC produced his ten-minute plays in Richard Vetere Explains the World: Ten Minutes at a Time and his stage play This Living Hand was given a reading by the New Group in Oct. 2014 and was a semi-finalist at the O’Neil Theater Festival.
In 2012 his musical, he wrote the book, 100 Years Into the Heart was a semi-finalist at the O’Neil Theater.
Vetere was an artist-in-residence at the Culture Project as part of IMPACT 2012 in July where he wrote the first draft of the first act of his play Square One and it was presented at the 45 Bleecker Street Theater.
His play Last Day had its world premiere in July 2011 at Gloucester Stage where Boston’s The Edge wrote “It is a cleverly written play with taut, realistic dialogue.” The Boston Globe wrote “It’s a play with rapid-fire dialogue as in Mamet’s world.”
His play Caravaggio, translated into Italian, had its Italian world premiere in Rome, Porto Ercole and Capri in July 2011.
His Off-Broadway plays include Gangster Apparel, which had its world premiere at The Old Red Lion in London in 1995.
One Shot, One Kill at Primary Stages in 2002 about the training of a Marine sniper which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the New Yorker wrote “Vetere’s dialogue hurtles forward – bracing, revealing, sometimes funny, frequently sobering and always in sharp focus.”
His critically acclaimed play Machiavelli was at the Arclight Theater in 2006; Caravaggio at the award winning Silk Crossing Theater in Chicago in 2006 which the Chicago Tribune writes “Lucid and complex dissection of such issues as religion, realism, art and romanticism…the play is fascinating.” He was a guest of the Chicago Humanities Festival that year.
His stage plays have been seen around the world including workshops of The Original Nobody with Annette Benning and Brendan Frazier at the Geffen Theater in LA and with Mark Ruffalo at MTC in NYC when it was under option by Chase Mishken; Gangster Apparel St. James in Melbourne; Cleveland Public Theater; The Engagement at the George Street Playhouse; The Vows of Penelope Corelli at Penguin Rep; Painting X’s On the Moon at Naked Angels; Four One Acts at the Kings Head in London to name a few and his A Coupla of Bimbos Sittin’ Around Talkin’ is produced in high schools around the country. His first play Rockaway Boulevard was first seen at the Actors Studio in 1978 and since has been produced all over with white, black and Latino actors most recently in 2005 on Theater Row.
His play Local Politics was produced by New York State and Film at Vassar.
He has also been produced by EST Hale the Hero!; New York Theater Workshop at Vassar Local Politics; HERE Gangster Apparel; Penguin Rep The Vows of Penelope Corelli to name a few theaters; Cleveland Public Theater Gangster Apparel.
His children’s play Bird Brain was recently published by Dramatic Publishing.
Over a dozen of his plays are published by Dramatic Publishing and his one acts An Epic Story of Love and Sex Told in Ten Minutes: Chapter One and Meatball Hero, Flower Girl in Blue, Moslem Girl in Rehearsal and The Kids Menu were picked as the best short plays of the year in 2009, 2010 and 2011 included in the Anthology of the Best One Acts by Smith & Kraus and Applause Books. He was also commissioned to write a one-act play for the Actors Theater of Louisville. And a commission by Broadway producer Pierre Cosset and musical producer Phil Ramone to write the book to a musical about Mario Lanza.
In 2013 Vetere was commissioned by the Spirit of Broadway to write the book to a musical titled Benedict Arnold by the Spirit of Broadway with Bill Squire doing lyrics and Jeff Lodin doing music. The play opened to rave reviews in 2014.
In 2005 Vetere won the Spirit of Broadway’s Best Book and Best Musical award for his original musical 100 Years Into the Heart with music by Jeff Lodin and lyrics by Bill Squire. It has been seen in festivals in NYC and across the country. It was just optioned for Off-Broadway.
In 2004 Vetere was commissioned to write the book about Mario Lanza titled Lanza for the deceased Pierre Cosset, the recently passed Phil Ramone and Sonny Grosso.
Grants and Awards
A Mary Roberts Rinehart Grant for playwrighting: Cultural Foundation Grant/C.E.T.A Grant three years running for poetry and Vetere was a guest of the Chicago Humanities Festival for his stage play Caravaggio. In 2002 he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by Primary Stages for his play One Shot, One Kill. He was nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Dellaventura.
His published books of poetry are Memories of Human Hands and A Dream of Angels and his new book of poetry The Other Colors In A Snow Storm published in 2012 by Bordighera Press. His poetry has been published in literary journals around the world.
He is a member of Poets & Writers, Author’s Guild, Penn America and Dramatist Guild. He is also a mentor for the Screenwriting Latino Festival sponsored by Sundance Films in Oaxaca, Mexico and in Ecuador in 2014.
Educator
He holds a master’s in Comparative English Literature from Columbia University and teaches screenwriting at Queens College and has taught both playwrighting and screenwriting in the master’s program at NYU in recent years and was on a panel in 2013 to mentor screenplays NYU.
He taught playwrighting at Lang College at the New School, and he has taught screenwriting at Montclair State. He is also a mentor for the Latino Playwrights Lab mentoring film writers in Latin American mostly in Oaxaca, Mexico and most recently in Cuenca, Ecuador.
In 2006 Stony Brook University and its Special Collections Division created the Richard Vetere Archives which are displayed in the Frank Melville Library.
Acting and Directing
Vetere has one of the male lead roles in The Limbo Room with Melissa Leo directed by Debra Eisenstaedt whose recent film was at Sundance, and he is also in Jane Ainebinder’s movie Nail Polish.
He is in Michele Remsen’s feature film Toss It, the short film Danni (now on Amazon), the short film Bank Robbery, Styx, and several TV commercials. He has a featured role in Adina Dancyger’s new film and He is currently plays Amon Ashely in the hit web series Skeleton Crew.
He plays the role of Derrick Taylor in Tony Kaye’s new film The Actress.
Richard Vetere directed Maria Micheles’ play Around the Night Park at Theater for the New City in 2010 and is directing Begonya Plaza’s play Teresa’s Ecstasy at INTAR in May and he directed the world premiere of Katalina Mastcheau’s play The Model at Incubator Space in NYC in 2011.
Richard Vetere
A Whodunit Award Winner
by Richard Vetere,
$3.99 ebook, $14.95 paperback
Every week a ten-year-old boy picks up a mysterious envelope from his aunt … then one day he discovers her dead on the floor of her dreary home, a knife plunged into her chest. The murder wasn’t solved for nearly 50 years. And how that came about is the story that will enthrall you with its telling – as a young boy becomes an old man and discovers the truth of his childhood. Richard Vetere is a well-known author, screenwriter, playwright, actor, director, and educator. His first novel (The Third Miracle) was named one of the best debut novels of 1997 by Library Journal and he was hired by Francis Ford Coppola to co-write the screenplay adaptation. Vetere was nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction in 2013 and again in 2014. He has written numerous successful screenplays for movies and television.
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