Biography
Ric Averill has been the Artistic Director of the Seem-To-Be Players professional children's theatre company since he and his wife, Jeanne, founded the company in 1973. Mr. Averill writes plays and music for children, youth, and adults, and has degrees in both Music Composition and Playwriting.
Mr. Averill has received numerous playwriting fellowships and been selected for six professional play development symposiums, including the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival New Plays Competition (Rough Stock), the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices, and the Indianapolis Bonderman Youth Theatre Playwriting Symposium.
Mr. Averill's published plays include The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor; Bird Woman: the Story of Sacagawea; Pixies, Kings, and Magical Things: Four Tales by H.C. Andersen; The Princess and the Pea and other short plays; Alex and the Shrink World; and T-Money and Wolf (with Kevin Willmott).
Two of Mr. Averill's screenplays are currently optioned in L.A.: Riding the Pine, with Will Averill, and The Man She Was, a Civil War screenplay, of which there is a stage play by the same name.
Included among Mr. Averill's many commissions are the Kennedy Center's Alice in Wonderland, First Stage Milwaukee's Little Drummer Boy, the Kansas Health Foundation's Red Blood and High Purpose, and most recently an opera for children based on the story of The Emperor's New Clothes, commissioned by the Kennedy Center.
