Richard Weill

Richard Weill

Richard Weill began writing plays the summer between college and law school, and continued writing throughout his 40-year career as a prosecutor and civil litigator.

His legal thriller Framed premiered in California in 2016 to standing-room-only audiences, a run extended by popular demand, and critical acclaim (“The script is engaging, entertaining, highly credible, and well worth your time. …...
Richard Weill began writing plays the summer between college and law school, and continued writing throughout his 40-year career as a prosecutor and civil litigator.

His legal thriller Framed premiered in California in 2016 to standing-room-only audiences, a run extended by popular demand, and critical acclaim (“The script is engaging, entertaining, highly credible, and well worth your time. … the script bears an uncommon authenticity, as well as being literate, concise and cogent.” Ventura Breeze, May 11, 2016; “Weill’s courtroom experience is evident in both the attorneys’ background discussions and in the snippets of trial scenes” in a play that “offers a killer performance that will keep audience guessing,” Ventura County Star, May 13, 2016). On the second anniversary of Framed's Oxnard opening, Sidney Books released Mr. Weill's fascinating account of the play's eight-year journey from conception to the page to the stage: We Open in Oxnard Saturday Afternoon.

Mr. Weill's play Sisters, suggested by an unsolved 1966 murder, starts in the present and moves backwards scene-by-scene to tell the story of how a crime changed a prominent family – and why.

Besides Sisters and Framed, Mr. Weill has written a fictional version of Agatha Christie’s 1926 disappearance (Imperfect Alibi), a legal thriller about the effort to exonerate a wrongly convicted inmate (Blackstone’s Ratio), a comedy-drama set in 1950's New York about the 23-year collaboration of two mystery writers (Hardbound), a thriller about adultery and betrayal (The Other Woman), a two-character thriller (Seed of Doubt), and an evening of three short plays about crime and crime writers (Constant Companions).

In addition, Mr. Weill has written two plays about young artists (Emergence of the Soul; The Unframed Canvas),a political comedy (Another County Heard From), a one-man play (This … Is Murrow), an allegory about baseball’s Black Sox scandal (And the Echo Answered Fraud), a play set in the New York Civil Jail (This Little World), a musical version of Waiting for Godot (The Vaudevillians), and a screenplay about a baseball broadcaster (The Voice of Summer).

Plays

  • Framed by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    6–8
    ·
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
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    Keyword: thriller, legal thriller + 4 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: thriller, legal thriller, courtroom drama, lawyers, murder trial, twist
    “Do you frame everything?” veteran defense attorney Eugene Murphy asks his younger, but nationally known, colleague Thomas Russo – referring to the framed articles, pictures, and awards that cover the walls of Russo’s office, waiting room, and indeed men’s room.

    So begins the clash between Murphy and Russo over how best to represent murder defendant Jennifer Creighton. A virtual mountain of...
    “Do you frame everything?” veteran defense attorney Eugene Murphy asks his younger, but nationally known, colleague Thomas Russo – referring to the framed articles, pictures, and awards that cover the walls of Russo’s office, waiting room, and indeed men’s room.

    So begins the clash between Murphy and Russo over how best to represent murder defendant Jennifer Creighton. A virtual mountain of forensic evidence proves Creighton’s guilt: blood evidence, fiber evidence, gunshot residue, cellphone records, and ultimately ballistic evidence. Murphy, refusing to gamble with the life of his client, declares the case unwinnable and wants to make a plea deal with the prosecutor. Russo, a flamboyant and audacious media hound, will entertain no thoughts of defeat. Great legal careers require stunning victories. If a mountain of evidence exists, it can only mean that a mountain of evidence was deliberately planted to incriminate the rich young defendant. In short, Jennifer Creighton must have been framed!

    But has Russo’s judgment been clouded by the image of invincibility he’s long created for himself? Is he embarking on this high-risk strategy because it serves Jennifer’s interests, or because pursuing a headline-grabbing defense serves his own? What’s really going on here? And has Russo made a dangerous assumption when offering to take Jennifer’s case?
  • Sisters by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: reverse chronology, murder + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: reverse chronology, murder, twins, suggested by a true story, twist
    Sisters begins at the end: a former federal judge and UN ambassador has died and his surviving daughter, the wife of a U.S. Senator, is giving his eulogy. When she mentions her twin sister Abby, whose loss was “the everlasting sadness” of her father’s life, she breaks down. So begins our journey back in time, first to the father’s deathbed; then to the father’s meeting with a retired police detective, whose...
    Sisters begins at the end: a former federal judge and UN ambassador has died and his surviving daughter, the wife of a U.S. Senator, is giving his eulogy. When she mentions her twin sister Abby, whose loss was “the everlasting sadness” of her father’s life, she breaks down. So begins our journey back in time, first to the father’s deathbed; then to the father’s meeting with a retired police detective, whose decades-long search for Abby’s killer continues even into retirement; then to the hospital bed of the children’s stepmother, whose clashes with Abby colored her views of what motivated her stepdaughter’s murder; and so forth. Gradually, we learn more and more about the anger harbored by the surviving twin over the blame, as she sees it, heaped on Abby for this crime. And in the course of moving backwards through time, we uncover secrets from the past that help explain why the present is so fraught with pain. Ultimately, we find ourselves in a tranquil setting with two adventurous people, both blissfully ignorant of what is to come, and each excusing their adventures with the play’s closing lines: “What’s the worst that can happen?”
  • Imperfect Alibi by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: thriller, murder + 6 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller, period
    Keyword: thriller, murder, 1920s, British Author, disappearance, Scotland Yard, suggested by a true story, twist
    England, December 1926. A British police detective confronts an ex-RAF officer with the fact that the officer’s wife, a celebrated British crime novelist, has gone missing, her car left abandoned by a lake with her fur coat, handbag, and wallet inside. The detective suspects foul play. The officer suspects that the entire mystery is his wife’s creation. As he describes “my wife’s greatest talent” to the...
    England, December 1926. A British police detective confronts an ex-RAF officer with the fact that the officer’s wife, a celebrated British crime novelist, has gone missing, her car left abandoned by a lake with her fur coat, handbag, and wallet inside. The detective suspects foul play. The officer suspects that the entire mystery is his wife’s creation. As he describes “my wife’s greatest talent” to the detective: “It’s certainly not her writing. It’s not her characters. It’s not her dialogue. It’s that she knows exactly how people think. Particularly how clever people think, and how to use that cleverness against them. Like jiu-jitsu uses the opponent’s strength against him.”

    Suggested by the 1926 disappearance of mystery writer Agatha Christie, this entirely fictional story will keep you guessing, and gasping, until the moment the final curtain falls.
  • Blackstone’s Ratio by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
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    Keyword: lawyers, dna + 4 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: lawyers, dna, innocence, inmate, murder, Investigation
    Martin Frye, director of the Freedom Clinic at Providence, Rhode Island’s Hughes Law School has dedicated his professional life to the principle, made famous by William Blackstone in 1769, that “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” To Frye, freeing the innocent is the law’s most sacred obligation. Finding the true guilty party is, to him, unimportant. But what if proving...
    Martin Frye, director of the Freedom Clinic at Providence, Rhode Island’s Hughes Law School has dedicated his professional life to the principle, made famous by William Blackstone in 1769, that “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” To Frye, freeing the innocent is the law’s most sacred obligation. Finding the true guilty party is, to him, unimportant. But what if proving guilt is necessary to free an innocent inmate? And what if Martin’s own DNA is the key evidence needed to identify the true killer? Blackstone’s Ratio takes us through the labyrinth of our legal system, its plot twisting and turning, until reaching a shocking yet gratifying solution. Not since Witness for the Prosecution has a legal battle on stage been this thrilling and entertaining.
  • Hardbound by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: 1950s, New York City + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: 1950s, New York City, collaboration, mystery writers, crime writers
    Hardbound takes place in New York City in the spring of 1951. The Rosenbergs have just been convicted. A “mad bomber” has attacked Grand Central Station and the New York Public Library. Academy Award-winning "All About Eve" is playing at the Roxy Theatre. And after 23 years of arguing and infighting, Hal Bernstein and Allen Gold are still collaborating on the brilliantly successful Kingsley Wright...
    Hardbound takes place in New York City in the spring of 1951. The Rosenbergs have just been convicted. A “mad bomber” has attacked Grand Central Station and the New York Public Library. Academy Award-winning "All About Eve" is playing at the Roxy Theatre. And after 23 years of arguing and infighting, Hal Bernstein and Allen Gold are still collaborating on the brilliantly successful Kingsley Wright mysteries. As Al describes their generally tempestuous relationship: “It’s built on need. You need me to plot a story, and I need you to write it.” They remain together because neither believes he could survive on his own. Each is “hardbound” to the other. And the constant clash of wills seems to fuel their creativity. Even so, is success worth the emotional cost?
  • Deadline by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: mystery/thriller
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    Keyword: Locked-room mystery, novelist + 2 more
    Genre: mystery/thriller
    Keyword: Locked-room mystery, novelist, publisher, missing manuscript
    Locked-room mystery writer Harrison Pryce is so desperate for a new idea that he uses the most painful chapter of his wife’s life as the premise for his latest novel. She reads the completed manuscript and is outraged. There is an argument, a struggle over a gun, and Harrison is killed. Now wife Julie is desperate. So she steals the solution to Harrison’s mystery to make her husband’s death appear like a...
    Locked-room mystery writer Harrison Pryce is so desperate for a new idea that he uses the most painful chapter of his wife’s life as the premise for his latest novel. She reads the completed manuscript and is outraged. There is an argument, a struggle over a gun, and Harrison is killed. Now wife Julie is desperate. So she steals the solution to Harrison’s mystery to make her husband’s death appear like a suicide inside a locked room, and then destroys all copies of his manuscript. The police are convinced. Harrison’s publisher, however, insists that a completed book exists, claims the contractual right to its possession, and demands that Julie produce it or he will have Harrison’s computer searched for deleted files. What is Julie to do?
  • Constant Companions by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    9
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: crime writers, History + 4 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, fantasy
    Keyword: crime writers, History, Fantasy, Titanic, multiple personality disorder, British mystery characters
    Constant Companions is an integrated evening of three short plays about crime and crime writers: “Problem at Sea,” “Mistaken Identity,” and “Perhaps She’ll Die.” Each short play is about someone with one or more other characters constantly in his or her head -- the "constant companions" of the play's title.

    "Problem at Sea" is based on the true story of Jacques Futrelle...
    Constant Companions is an integrated evening of three short plays about crime and crime writers: “Problem at Sea,” “Mistaken Identity,” and “Perhaps She’ll Die.” Each short play is about someone with one or more other characters constantly in his or her head -- the "constant companions" of the play's title.

    "Problem at Sea" is based on the true story of Jacques Futrelle, popular detective-story writer of the early 20th century best known for his short story "The Problem of Cell 13" featuring fictional detective Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen. In "The Problem of Cell 13," Van Dusen wagers that he can escape from a maximum security prison -- and succeeds. Ironically, on the night of April 14-15, 1912, Futrelle and his wife May were passengers aboard the RMS Titanic. In "Problem at Sea," after placing his wife in a lifeboat, Futrelle and Van Dusen (Futrelle's "constant companion") set about trying to apply the same mental faculties they used in "Cell 13" to escape the sinking ship.

    "Mistaken Identity" is about a young man, charged with the rape of a woman he cannot remember meeting, diagnosed with dissociative identity (multiple personality) disorder.

    Finally, "Perhaps She'll Die" treats the stock, recurring characters in a series of English country house mystery novels (written by someone referred to only as "the old lady") as if they were actors in a repertory theater. Each character has reappeared from book to book, slightly altered perhaps. And each knows nothing about his or her character beyond what "the old lady" thus far has written. (The title comes from the old children’s song that begins: “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly; I don’t know why she swallowed a fly; perhaps she’ll die.”)

    These short plays are designed to be performed together. "Problem at Sea" and "Mistaken Identity" should be performed back-to-back, prior to the intermission. "Perhaps She'll Die," the longest of the three short plays, should follow the intermission. Furthermore, a "Note on Casting" shows how the cast members for "Problem at Sea" and "Mistaken Identity" suit the various parts in "Perhaps She'll Die."
  • Problem at Sea by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 1 more
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    Keyword: Titanic, Jacques Futrelle + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, fantasy
    Keyword: Titanic, Jacques Futrelle, Thinking Machine, Professor Van Dusen
    "Problem at Sea" is based on the true story of Jacques Futrelle, popular detective-story writer of the early 20th century best known for his short story "The Problem of Cell 13" featuring fictional detective Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen. In "The Problem of Cell 13," Van Dusen wagers that he can escape from a maximum security prison -- and succeeds. Ironically, on the night...
    "Problem at Sea" is based on the true story of Jacques Futrelle, popular detective-story writer of the early 20th century best known for his short story "The Problem of Cell 13" featuring fictional detective Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen. In "The Problem of Cell 13," Van Dusen wagers that he can escape from a maximum security prison -- and succeeds. Ironically, on the night of April 14-15, 1912, Futrelle and his wife May were passengers aboard the RMS Titanic. In "Problem at Sea," after placing his wife in a lifeboat, Futrelle and Van Dusen (Futrelle's "constant companion") set about trying to apply the same mental faculties they used in "Cell 13" to escape the sinking ship.

  • Mistaken Identity by Richard Weill
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: multiple personality disorder, psychiatrist + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: multiple personality disorder, psychiatrist, lawyers, criminal case, hospitals
    "Mistaken Identity" is about a young man, charged with the rape of a woman he cannot remember meeting, diagnosed with dissociative identity (multiple personality) disorder.
  • Perhaps She'll Die by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    9
    ·
    Genre: comedy, experimental + 3 more
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    Keyword: British mystery characters, avant-garde
    Genre: comedy, experimental, fantasy, farce, satire
    Keyword: British mystery characters, avant-garde
    As described by the Eden Prairie Players (Eden Prairie, MN): "’Perhaps She'll Die’ is a hilarious meta-riff on the mystery genre. The characters of a famous murder mystery author wait patiently as an aging writer (referred to only as ‘the old lady’) drafts out her story. As their anxiety mounts over which of them will kill/be killed, the characters decide to take their fate into their own hands and...
    As described by the Eden Prairie Players (Eden Prairie, MN): "’Perhaps She'll Die’ is a hilarious meta-riff on the mystery genre. The characters of a famous murder mystery author wait patiently as an aging writer (referred to only as ‘the old lady’) drafts out her story. As their anxiety mounts over which of them will kill/be killed, the characters decide to take their fate into their own hands and solve the mystery before it's even written.”
  • Emergence of the Soul by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: comedy, romantic comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: Art and Artists, Painting + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, romantic comedy, satire
    Keyword: Art and Artists, Painting, Gallery, Museums, art critic, gallery owner, artistic success
    Emergence of the Soul is about a struggling artist who, after a night of drinking, paints something magnificent -- but can't remember doing it, let alone how. And until he figures these things out, how can he handle the growing demand for more of his work?
  • The Other Woman by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: thriller, murder + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: thriller, murder, Maine, lawyers, Sheriff, realtor, adultery, betrayal, twist, disguise
    A New York City couple rents a cottage on the Maine coast in order to escape a woman stalking their Manhattan home. At least, that's the story they're telling the Maine real estate agent. Is it true? Is the "other woman" really a stalker? Is the stalker really the "other woman"? As each plot twist unfolds, one question lingers: who is the "other woman"?
  • Seed of Doubt by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: murder, cat and mouse + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: murder, cat and mouse, police detective
    A two-character play, Seed of Doubt is based on an actual murder case: a husband and wife were proceeding through an amicable divorce until the wife met a divorce lawyer at a party, began an affair with the lawyer, the lawyer intervened in the divorce and bilked the husband of everything — whereupon the husband murdered the lawyer. In the play, the murder already has occurred. A police detective is responding...
    A two-character play, Seed of Doubt is based on an actual murder case: a husband and wife were proceeding through an amicable divorce until the wife met a divorce lawyer at a party, began an affair with the lawyer, the lawyer intervened in the divorce and bilked the husband of everything — whereupon the husband murdered the lawyer. In the play, the murder already has occurred. A police detective is responding to the husband’s house to investigate. The play is a cat-and-mouse game between the two — some real, some imagined.
  • The Medal by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Olympic medal, Aging athletes + 2 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Olympic medal, Aging athletes, collecting, nurse
    A collector visits an aging ex-Olympic athlete in his assisted living facility. The collector recently bought a tarnished Olympic silver medal at a local flea market and, after considerable investigation, believes he knows to whom the medal belongs. He's willing to return the medal, but only if the aging athlete will explain why he threw it away.
  • Getting It All Down in Black and White by Richard Weill
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: black and white, Police Officer + 5 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: black and white, Police Officer, eyewitness, interview, film noir, NYC, 1940s
    In a black-and-white scene reminiscent of film noir, a police lieutenant interviews his key eyewitness to a cop killing. But in this black-and-white world, reducing a witness's recollections to a black-and-white statement allows for no uncertainties. As the lieutenant says: "Nothing is a maybe. Something is or it isn’t. It’s one thing or another ... maybe is always the wrong answer — because nothing...
    In a black-and-white scene reminiscent of film noir, a police lieutenant interviews his key eyewitness to a cop killing. But in this black-and-white world, reducing a witness's recollections to a black-and-white statement allows for no uncertainties. As the lieutenant says: "Nothing is a maybe. Something is or it isn’t. It’s one thing or another ... maybe is always the wrong answer — because nothing is ever really a maybe." Does this insistence pervert the search for truth, or enhance it?
  • Open-Mic Night by Richard Weill
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy
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    Keyword: comic, heckler + 1 more
    Genre: comedy
    Keyword: comic, heckler, comedy club
    A novice, would-be comic is savaged by a heckler, with surprising results.