Joshua Ravetch

Ravetch's award winning play, Chasing Mem'ries: A Different Kind of Musical received the Edgerton New Play Award and was nominated for the Ovation. The play starred Tyne Daly and Robert Forster and world premiered at The Geffen Playhouse in 2017. Ravetch collaborated with legendary lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman with music by Marvin Hamlisch, Michel Legrand and Johnny Mandel. During the workshop of the production, Norman Lear said, "If there were a Tony for a yet-to-be-fully-produced-play, Chasing Mem'ries would get my vote. This is a touching, luscious, triumphant piece of theatre."

Ravetch also wrote and directed The Astronomer, which was performed at The Pasadena Playhouse with Academy Award winner Shirley Jones in the title role (after receiving a workshop production at the NoHo Arts Center Theatre). The play came on the heels of the whimsical project Ravetch co-wrote with stage and screen icon Dick Van Dyke, Step in Time! A Musical Memoir.[1] Ravetch directed the world premiere production of the play at The Geffen Playhouse with Van Dyke starring.

Perhaps Ravetch is most known for collaborated with actress/writer Carrie Fisher, and co-creating and directing her in Wishful Drinking, Fisher's one-woman-show at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse.[2] It enjoyed an extended run on Broadway at Studio 54 and was adapted into a special for HBO. Ravetch was collaborating with Fisher on the sequel to Wishful Drinking which he was to co-write and direct. The play was to be titled, Wishful Drinking Strikes Back, and was a Geffen Playhouse commission at the time of her death.

Ravetch also co-created and directed Onward: The Diana Nyad Story, chronicling the life of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad as she ultimately succeeded in being the only person ever to swim 111 miles from Cuba to Florida. The play opened at The Studios of Key West, just one mile from where Nyad made landfall at Smathers Beach after the fifty-four-hour non-stop swim. Nyad performed live in the play, which is to tour next year. Ravetch also wrote and directed Go Figure!, starring Olympic champion ice skater Randy Gardner and featuring his lifelong skating partner Tai Babilonia, with ice skating royalty Dorothy Hamill. The play was hailed as an astonishing and riveting look at the world of Olympic ice skating during the Cold War. Gardner, Babilonia, and Hamill performed the play in January, 2018 at the Delaware Theatre Company. In addition, Ravetch's critically acclaimed play, One November Yankee, enjoyed a world premiere in Los Angeles. The play was performed by M*A*S*H star, Loretta Swit and L.A. Law’s, Harry Hamlin. The stage play was optioned as a movie by Pam Williams Productions and launched the 2019/2020 season at The Delaware Theatre Company with Harry Hamlin and Stefanie Powers before moving off-Broadway to 59E59th Street.

Also at The Geffen Playhouse, Ravetch wrote and directed a workshop production of Writer's Cramp with Oscar nominee Robert Forster, Emmy winner and Tony nominee Holland Taylor, and Tony nominee Douglas Sills. Other writing credits include Periscope Up a play in one act which was performed at the NoHo Arts Theatre and was directed by Star Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes.

Ravetch also directed Clifford Odets' The Big Knife; Thomas Babe's Prayer For My Daughter; John Patrick's Hasty Heart and Ira Levin's Deathtrap which garnered five Drama-Logue Awards including awards for Director and Production.

Ravetch's other playwriting credits include Girders at Los Angeles' Coast Playhouse starring Robert Forster, which won the coveted Odets Award. Forster also starred in workshop productions of Ravetch's plays Off Sides with Olympia Dukakis and Beacon with Brooke Shields.

His other plays include Invention with Stefanie Powers at the NoHo Arts Center, and he co-wrote One From the Hart, Powers' one-woman show which opened at the Orange County Performing Arts Centre. Also at The Coast Playhouse, Ravetch directed Bart Baker's play, Love Acts, with actress/supermodel Beverly Johnson. Johnson was nominated for the NAACP Image award for her performance.

Ravetch is a member of SDC, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Ravetch's television credits include CBS' Joan of Arcadia, Titan for TNT, Horseshoe Bay for Warner Brothers, and Yesterday for Laura Ziskin Productions. Miramax recently purchased his play Off Sides as a feature film.

Ravetch was also the Artistic Director at The Stella Adler Conservatory. There he taught Adler's signature script interpretation classes as well as technique and advance scene study.

In addition to his writing life, Ravetch held the post of SVP of Production Resources at New Line Cinema and is currently working with Amblin Partners and Paramount Pictures. In all, Ravetch has worked on over 100 feature films in his capacity as the head of Production Resources including Mission Impossible, the Austin Powers trilogy, The Wolf of Wall Street, World War Z, The Guilt Trip, Sex and the City, Office Christmas Party, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner 2049, Terminator 2019 and Avatar 2 and 3.