Event: Rick Leidenfrost- Wilson

Nov
10

Rick Leidenfrost-WilsonRick Leidenfrost-Wilson is a playwright, actor, director, composer, and educator. He currently resides in Baldwin, New York, and Brewster, Massachusetts, with his husband, Chris, and their four dogs Champ, Lily, Primrose and Riley. Rick holds an M.A. and B.A. in English from Queens College/CUNY where he developed Beach Club and Other Stories as well as his break-out play,Ascension. While at Queens College, he also received the English Faculty Award for Playwriting for his play, A-, about existentialism in education.

He received his acting training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has enjoyed playing such roles as David in To Gillian on her 37th Birthday, Greg in A Chorus Line, Laertes in Hamlet, King Arthur in Camelot, and one his most cherished roles: Little Jackie Paper in Puff, the Magic Dragon (playing opposite a completely-then-unknown actor, James Gandolfini, as the gentle dragon, Puff.)

Rick also trained as a piano performance and composition major at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and his compositions for theatre have been heard internationally in such venues as the Yale Cabaret (New Haven), The Classical Theatre Company (New York), the Helen Gardner Phalin Theatre (Toronto) and the Chanticleer Theatre (London).

He has directed, music directed, and choreographed in New York, Toronto, and throughout the United States, such standards asThe King and I and Oklahoma! in summer stock, and his own edgier, original work in New York and Toronto. Rick’s recently produced plays include the world premiere of The Declaration: An American Parable on Politcs and Same-Sex Marriage at Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, Hockey: The Musical!at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2008 and Too Much, Too Far, Too Soon (a trilogy of short works) which was produced in 2009 at the Midtown International Theatre Festival in Manhattan in association with Off-Broadway producer John Chatterton. He has directed over twenty shows with The Wheatley School, where he teaches English and theatre. His recognitions as educator include being a PTO “Teacher of the Year” and Distinguished Educator 2008 for the Harvard Club of Long Island.

Most recent honors for Rick include the “Editor’s Pick” award for his creative non-fiction piece Tooth Fairies, Pumpkins, and Wedding Cake which was published in Prime Time Cape Cod (January, 2010), the magazine of the Cape Cod Times; and The Declaration, won first place in its division with the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation. Rick is a proud member of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Long Island Writing Project, the Provincetown Theatre Playwright’s Lab, the Cape Cod Writers Center, the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Theatre Ontario, the New York State Union of Teachers, and the National Federation of Teachers.