When You Comin Back, Red Ryder:
The Playwright

Mark Medoff
Mark Medoff is an American playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. Born in Mount Carmel, Illinois. When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? was his first play to be staged in New York City, which won him the 1974 Drama Desk and Obie Awards for Outstanding New Playwright. He later adpated the screenplay and received an Academy Award nomation. His big breakthrough was 1980's Children of a Lesser God, which won him the Tony, Drama Desk, and Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Play and garnered him another Academy Award nomination for the screenplay adaptation. Medoff's work was back on Broadway again in 2005 with the staging of his play Prymate. His feature film Refuge is currently in pre-production. He was co-founder of the American Southwest Theatre Company and head of the Department of Theatre Arts for 9 years at New Mexico State University, where he has been a professor for 27 years. Currently the Creative Director of the Creative Media Institute at NMSU, he received his BA from the University of Miami and his MFA from Stanford University. Medoff also received an honorary doctorate from Gallaudet University in 1981.