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Joshua Ravetch is an American playwright, screenwriter and stage director born in Los Angeles, California, who co-created and directed Carrie Fisher's one-woman show Wishful Drinking , which had a successful run on Broadway. He also co-wrote and directed Dick Van Dyke in his first-ever one man show, Step in Time! A Musical Memoir, which premiered at The Geffen Playhouse.
Ravetch's award-winning play, Chasing Mem'ries: A Different Kind of Musical received the Edgerton New Play Award and was nominated for the Ovation. The play starred Tyne Daly and Robert Forster and world premiered at The Geffen Playhouse in 2017. Ravetch collaborated with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman with music by Marvin Hamlisch, Michel Legrand and Johnny Mandel.
Ravetch's play One November Yankee began its life at the NoHo Arts Theatre in a workshop production starring Academy nominated, Robert Forster and M*A*S*H's own Hot Lips Houlihan, Loretta Swit . The play moved Off-Broadway to 59E59 just as Covid hit starring Harry Hamlin an Stefanie Powers after winning the ten play competition at The Delaware Theater Company before moving Off-Broadway to 59E59. The play was unusual in that the set was an actual full-sized crashed Piper J3 Cub. It becomes a character in the play. One review called the play,"Magnificent theatrical origami." First the plane is an art installation at MOMA based on a real plane that disappeared into the mountains of New Hampshire. Hamlin is the artist, his sister, Powers is doing him a favor, she curates. Then the museum panels become trees, and smoke billows from the engine and we see the actual plane just after the crash. We find out what happened to this brother / sister flying to their father's funeral. Finally, we see the plane five years later when another brother / sister are hiking deep into the woods and stumble on the wreckage and do archaeology. All set of siblings are played by Hamlin and Powers.
Ravetch also wrote and directed a workshop production of The Astronomer, which was performed at The Pasadena Playhouse with Academy Award winner Shirley Jones in the title role (after an initial reading at the NoHo Arts Center Theatre). The play came on the heels of the whimsical project Ravetch co-wrote with stage and screen icon Dick Van Dyke, Step in Time! A Musical Memoir . [1] Ravetch directed the world premiere production of the play at The Geffen Playhouse with Van Dyke starring.
Perhaps Ravetch is most known for collaborated with actress/writer Carrie Fisher, and co-creating and directing her in Wishful Drinking , Fisher's one-woman-show at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse. [2] It enjoyed an extended run on Broadway at Studio 54 and was adapted into a special for HBO.
Also at The Geffen Playhouse, Ravetch wrote and directed a workshop production of Writer's Cramp with Oscar nominee Robert Forster, Emmy winner and Tony nominee Holland Taylor, and Tony nominee Douglas Sills. Other writing credits include Periscope Up a play in one act which was performed at the NoHo Arts Theatre and was directed by Star Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes.
In 2023 Ravetch's play, Our American Sons was workshopped at the Delaware Theatre Company. A project conceived over Covid tracking the true-life stories of gay and trans kids who have been put through the utterly damaging and traumatic atrocity known as Conversion Therapy, a practice slowly being outlawed throughout the USA.
Ravetch co-wrote and directed Beverly Johnson; IN VOGUE which workshopped in Palm Springs in 2023 and opened Off-Broadway in January, 2024. That date coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the famous ground-breaking Vogue cover where Johnson became the first every black woman to grace the cover of American Vogue.
Ravetch also directed Clifford Odets' The Big Knife ; Thomas Babe's Prayer For My Daughter ; John Patrick's Hasty Heart and Ira Levin's Deathtrap which garnered five Drama-Logue Awards including awards for Director and Production.
Ravetch's other playwriting credits include Girders which he wrote and directed and which enjoyed an extended run at Los Angeles' Coast Playhouse starring Robert Forster. Forster also starred in workshop productions of Ravetch's plays Off Sides with Olympia Dukakis and Beacon with Brooke Shields.
His other plays include Invention with Stefanie Powers at the NoHo Arts Center, and he co-wrote One From the Hart , Powers' one-woman show which opened at the Orange County Performing Arts Centre. Also at The Coast Playhouse, Ravetch directed Bart Baker's play, Love Acts , with actress/supermodel Beverly Johnson. Johnson was nominated for the NAACP Image award for her performance.
Ravetch's television credits include CBS' Joan of Arcadia , Titan for TNT, Horseshoe Bay for Warner Brothers, and Yesterday for Laura Ziskin Productions.
| Year | Title | Position | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Beverly Johnson: "IN VOGUE" | Writer/Director | 59E59, Off Broadway |
| 2023 | Our American Sons | Writer/Director | Delaware Theatre Company |
| 2021 | Chasing More Mem'ries; Another Kind of Musical. (Second in the Chasing Mem'ries cycle.) | Writer/Director | Lyricists, Alan & Marilyn Bergman collaborating. |
| 2020 | One November Yankee | Writer/Director | 59e59th Street Theatre, Off Broadway, New York, NY |
| 2019 | One November Yankee | Writer/Director | Delaware Theatre Company starring Harry Hamlin and Stefanie Powers: Preproduction |
| 2019 | Beverly Johnson: Naked! | Writer/Director | West Hollywood Library Theatre: Workshop production starring supermodel, Beverly Johnson |
| 2017 | Chasing Mem'ries: A Different Kind of Musical | Writer/Director | The Geffen Playhouse starring Tyne Daly and Robert Forster. Recipient of the Edgerton New Play Award. |
| 2016 | Wishful Drinking Strikes Back | Co-Creator/Director | The Geffen Playhouse Commission to star Carrie Fisher (Never performed) |
| 2016 | Go Figure: The Randy Gardner Story | Writer/Director | Starring Olympic Champions Randy Gardner with Dorothy Hamill and Tai Babilonia at the NoHo Arts Center in Los Angeles and the Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington, Delaware (2018). |
| 2015 | Onward: The Diana Nyad Story | Co-Writer/Director | Starring Diana Nyad. |
| 2014 | One November Yankee | Writer/Director | Starring Loretta Swit and Harry Hamlin. |
| 2013 | The Light Bulb | Writer | NoHo Arts Center |
| 2012 | Periscope Up | Writer | Directed by Jonathan Frakes. |
| 2011 | Step in Time: A Musical Memoir | Writer/Director | The Geffen Playhouse starring Dick Van Dyke. |
| 2010 | The Astronomer | Writer/Director | Pasadena Playhouse starring Shirley Jones. |
| 2009 | Writer's Cramp | Writer/Director | The Geffen Playhouse: Workshop Production starring Holland Taylor, Robert Forster, Douglas Sills |
| 2008 | Beacon | Writer/ Director | Egyptian Arena Theatre: Workshop Production starring Holland Taylor, Brooke Shields, Robert Forster, Kerr Smith. |
| 2007 | Off Sides | Writer/Director | Egyptian Arena Theatre: Workshop Production starring Olympia Dukakis and Robert Forster. |
| 2006 | Wishful Drinking | Co-Creator /Director | The Geffen Playhouse starring Carrie Fisher |
| 2006 | One From the Hart | Director | Orange County Performing Arts Center starring Stefanie Powers |
| 2002 | The Seagull | Director | Egyptian Arena Theatre |
| 2000 | Deathtrap | Director | Stella Adler Theatre |
| 1998 | The Hasty Heart | Director | Glendale Centre Theatre |
| 1996 | Girders | Writer/Director | The Coast Playhouse |
| 1995 | The Big Knife | Director | Stella Adler Theatre starring Robert Forster |
| 1994 | Prayer for my Daughter | Director | The Complex |
| 1993 | Love Acts | Director | The Coast Playhouse |
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