Roger M. Rueff (13 December) is a writer whose produced dramatic works include stage plays, teleplays, and screenplays.
His stage play Hospitality Suite premiered at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California in 1992 and has been subsequently produced internationally. So Many Words also premiered at South Coast Rep, where it garnered two awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle: one for best writing and the other for best play to receive its world premiere in Los Angeles or Orange counties (the Ted Schmitt Award).
Rueff's works for the screen include the teleplay God Lives produced by the Magic Door Children's Theater in Chicago and The Big Kahuna , his screen adaptation of Hospitality Suite, starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. The Big Kahuna premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, 1999, and was one of three films nominated for the 2000 Humanitas Prize for independent film.
In 2011 he collaborated with the Italian screenwriter Nicola Barile, author of The Art of Happiness , at the international Boys & Girls web series, directed by Fulvio Iannucci and co-funded by the European Community to raise awareness among European teenagers on some topics, such as nutrition, use of alcohol and drugs and sexual behaviors.
Rueff was born in Upland, California and grew up in Denver, Colorado. [1] He earned a B.Sc. in 1978, an M.Sc. in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1985 in Chemical and Petroleum Refining Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. [2]
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The Big Kahuna is a 1999 American business comedy-drama film directed by John Swanbeck, and produced by Kevin Spacey, who also starred in the lead role. The film is adapted from the 1992 play Hospitality Suite, written by Roger Rueff, who also wrote the screenplay. John Swanbeck makes few attempts to lessen this film's resemblance to a stage performance: the majority of the film takes place in a single hotel room, and nearly every single line of dialogue is spoken by one of the three actors. The famous 1997 essay Wear Sunscreen is featured at the end of the film.
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Hospitality Suite is a 1992 stage play written by Roger Rueff that centers on conflicting notions of character, salesmanship, honesty, religion, and love that simmer until they boil over as two experienced salesmen and a young research engineer await a CEO whose visit to their modest hospitality suite could save their company from ruin.
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