Richard Greenberg ’80

Rich died of cancer July 4, 2025, in Manhattan.

He was born and raised in Long Island, N.Y. He majored in English at Princeton, studying creative writing under Joyce Carol Oates and graduating magna cum laude. His senior thesis was a 438-page work titled “A Romantic Career – A Novel.” He went on to the Yale School of Drama, where he began a long and successful career as a playwright.

He wrote more than 30 plays, being nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize and winning a Tony Award in 2003 for his best-known play Take Me Out, about a biracial MLB player who comes out as gay. The play won another Tony for Best Revival in 2022. He developed several of his plays at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in California before taking them to Broadway.

Some of his other plays on Broadway included Eastern Standard, Three Days of Rain, The Violet Hour, The American Plan, The Assembled Parties, and adaptations of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Strindberg’s Dance of Death.

At Princeton, aside from his academic pursuits, Rich acted in plays by Coward, Williams, and Shakespeare, and had a fine singing voice, serenading his friends during study breaks. He valued his privacy but was kind and companiable to all.

Rich is survived by his brother Edward; sister-in-law Janet; and their children and grandchildren. Our heartfelt condolences to his family. He will be missed.