Ralph Pape was an American playwright best known for Say Goodnight, Gracie, Soap Opera and Hearts Beating Faster.
Theater
Say Goodnight, Gracie was produced by Douglas Urbanski and ran off-Broadway for 400 performances in 1978 and was staged in 1979 by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, also produced by Douglas Urbanski with Austin Pendleton directing a cast headed by John Malkovich, Joan Allen and Glenne Headly. The comedy-drama captures a generation at a turning point in 1976. Five members of the first Television Generation plan to attend their high school reunion. In New York, they gather in an East Village apartment where they discuss their dreams, insecurities, past events and favorite TV shows. As they head toward age 30. they attempt to figure out what to do with their lives. The first draft of Hearts Beating Faster was commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theatre as part of their new plays project in 1991. His other plays include Girls We Have Known, Warm and Tender Love and Beyond Your Command. Gracie, Soap Opera and Girls We Have Known have each had over 200 productions in the United States, Canada and Australia. Mel Gussow, in The New York Times, reviewed the 1992 New York production of Soap Opera, directed by Elizabeth Franzen:
Television
In 1983, Say Goodnight, Gracie was adapted by the author for a 90-minute teleplay which was seen on Chicago's PBS affiliate WTTW with the original Steppenwolf cast of Joan Allen, Jeff Perry, Glenne Headly, Francis Guinan and John Malkovich.
Awards
Pape received a 1994 Emmy for his TV adaptation of Say Goodnight, Gracie. Girls We Have Known was a runner-up in Actors Theatre of Louisville's Great American Play Contest. As a result, the theatre commissioned Warm and Tender Love and Soap Opera. Hearts Beating Faster prompted New York's Berrilla Kerr Foundation to honor Pape with a five-figure award "to acknowledge the contribution made to the contemporary American theatre." In 2007, Pape was selected as one of America's top 50 playwrights to watch. This was featured in a cover story by The Dramatist, the bi-monthly magazine published by the Dramatists Guild of America.
Books
Scenes and monologues extracted from Pape's plays have been published in the following books:
