Richard Carter grew up in Portland, Oregon, the son of a doctor and a dancer. After graduating from Vassar College in 1980 and receiving his MFA in playwriting from the University of Washington, Richard’s historical play Blood and Iron won Seattle’s Jumpstart New Play Competition and went on to be presented by the Seattle Shakespeare Festival in 1997 and by Living Theatre Company in London’s West End in 1998. His musical play, Winds in the Morning, premiered at the 1997 Seattle Fringe Festival and was selected to inaugurate the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in 2000.

Richard offers his talents in many venues. As Author/Director of the Community Shakespeare Company, his adaptations of Shakespeare for young actors are utterly faithful to the spirit of the original plays, while making them instantly accessible to modern students and audiences. Acknowledged by the Educational Theatre Association, CSC Editions are used by teachers across the U.S. and abroad to introduce elementary and middle schoolers to the Bard.

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.