'The Golden Age of radio drama is so long gone, most people think it's just talking heads -- or talking mouths. But that's a real misunderstanding of the medium. Radio drama is really a highly visual form of storytelling. When it's done well, it has much more in common with screenwriting than playwriting.' -- Richard Toscan
Richard Toscan's radio dramas have been broadcast throughout Europe, North America, and Australia by the BBC, CBC, ABC, and NPR, featuring among other stars, Richard Thomas, Mark Hamill, Brock Peters, and Richard Widmark. He conceived and produced the original STAR WARS Radio Series in association with Lucasfilm, NPR, and the BBC. The series has aired continuously since 1981 and is credited with increasing the audience for public radio in America by 40%. It has been recognized by the Armstrong Award for Creative Use of The Radio Medium and was released in five CD and cassette editions between 1993 and 1996. [For more on producing the STAR WARS Radio Series, see my author's comments at Amazon.com.]His stage plays -- written primarily as a test of his teaching of the craft -- have been in the finals and semifinals of The Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Foundation for The Dramatists Guild/CBS-TV New Play Program, The Sergel Drama Prize, and The Market House Theatre One Act Competition. They have been presented in productions or staged readings by the Galaxy Stage, USC School of Theatre, New Dramatists, The Cast Theatre Foundry Series, The McCaddan Place Theatre, L.A. Arts Repertory Theatre, First Stage, Mill Mountain Theatre Centerpiece Series, and the American Line's Summer Series in New York.
He has been a Judge for the $10,000 Beverly Hills Theatre Guild New Play Competition [now the Julie Harris Competition] and the $4,000 Oregon Film & Video Foundation Screenwriting Competition. He was a founding playwright and Board member of First Stage, the Los Angeles new play development program and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
His students have included a number of notable performers, directors, and writers in theatre, film, and television. Their work has been recognized by Obie, Emmy, and Laurence Olivier awards as well as the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. In 1996, he was named Dean of Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts, one of the largest arts and design programs in the USA. He is a member of the boards of Theatre Virginia; Richmond Ballet: The State Ballet of Virginia; the Artisans Center of Virginia; and is President of The Arts Council of Richmond. He was the founding Chair of the Downtown Cultural District of Portland, Oregon. He serves on the Editoral Board of the European Journal of Arts Education, the journal of the European League of Institutes of the Arts.
He holds the Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign and has held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Richard Toscan, Dean
School of the Arts
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842519
Richmond, VA 23284-2519
USAPHONE: (804) 828-2787
FAX: (804) 828-6469
E-mail: rtoscan@vcu.edu
THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS: THE FULL-LENGTH PLAYhttp://www.vcu.edu/arts/playwriting/