Meet Richard Carter

Richard Carter grew up in Portland, Oregon, the son of a doctor and a dancer. Since 1986 he has made his home in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state.

After graduating Vassar College in 1980 and receiving his MFA in playwriting from the University of Washington, Richard’s play Blood and Iron won Seattle’s Jumpstart New Play Competition and went on to be presented on the London stage. His next play, Winds in the Morning, was staged at the 1997 Seattle Fringe Festival and selected to inaugurate the Wooden Boat Festival at Port Townsend, Washington in 2000.

Richard offers his talents in many venues. As Co-founder/Artistic Director of the Community Shakespeare Company, he is one of the few playwrights today with the audacity to work with Shakespeare. Working in rhyming couplets, updating some of the language, he delivers the best of the Bard for young actors. His adaptations are so authentic that audiences scarcely know they aren’t seeing and hearing the original, and they often like it better.

Community Shakespeare Company itself breaks new ground. Its mission is to enrich young lives and cultivate community. Richard’s unique adaptations enchant and engage young actors from 3rd grade up. His leadership motivates community, parents, mentors and artists to support and encourage youth. The result is a dynamic model that can be replicated in schools, organizations, clubs and communities nationwide.

Richard and his wife Jeanna, married since l988, live on a small farm where they have been even more successful raising five children than they have been raising sheep.