Rick Cleveland

Writer 

Rick Cleveland was a writer and Executive Producer for all five seasons of HBO's award-winning Six Feet Under.� In 2000, he won an Emmy Award, a Writer's Guild Award, and The Humanitas Prize for his writing on The West Wing. He was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America for his screen adaptation of John Grisham's Runaway Jury. His play Jerry and Tom was adapted as a screenplay and was an official selection at both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. As a freelance journalist Rick has written for the Destinations column of Outside Magazine and for the Chicago Tribune's Sunday Magazine. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa's Playwrights' Workshop in 1995.

As a monologist, Rick won the Jury Award for Outstanding Performance in a One Person Show at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen in 2006 for his Mark Twain-inspired monologue, My Buddy Bill, a meta-tall-tale about his friendship with the 42nd President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, and the President's dog, Buddy. Rick has toured the US performing My Buddy Bill, and a filmed version premiered on Comedy Central in 2008 and is currently one of their Top Ten Specials on I-tunes. Last summer Rick premiered a follow-up monologue, My Pal George (about the 44th President, George W. Bush) at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and is currently working on a new monologue entitled Ricky and Dick, about his epistolary childhood relationship with the 37th President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon.