Robin Russin

Robin Russin is an American playwright, screenwriter, author and educator.

Education

Russin was educated at Harvard, Oxford (which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship), the Rhode Island School of Design, and UCLA, where he received his MFA in screenwriting. Russin taught screenwriting at UCLA in their undergraduate and graduate film departments as well as their Professional Program from 1994 to 2002. He is currently Professor of Screenwriting and has served as Director of the MFA for Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at UC Riverside.^[1]

Career

Russin has written for film, theater, television and various national publications, including Scr(i)pt Magazine. Additionally, he co-authored Screenplay: Writing the Picture and Naked Playwriting (both published by Silman-James Press).^[2][3][4] Screenplay: Writing the Picture was reviewed by Lew Hunter, co-chair of UCLA's screenwriting department, as the "best book about screenwriting and being a screenwriter ever written."

Among Russin's entertainment credits are the #1 box office feature On Deadly Ground,^[5] the eco-thriller starring Steven Seagal and Michael Caine, and many of his other feature spec scripts have been either bought or put under option by both studio and independent producers.

Russin has been a producer on both independent and TV movies, and in television, he wrote, produced and directed numerous segments and specials for America's Most Wanted and The Prosecutors. He was Senior Producer of the hour-long ABC primetime series, Vital Signs. In 2015 he sold his original pilot and series bible about King David to ABC, which became the basis for the ABC 2016 prime time one-hour series, "Of Kings and Prophets," for which Russin is consultant.

Among his plays is Painted Eggs, which was reviewed by The Los Angeles Times as "ambitious, heart-felt and hypnotic,"^[6] and Dramalogue called "a glorious treat and a wonderful lesson in love." He regularly writes and directs for the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica, California, which premiered his play "The Face In The Reeds" in 2014.^[7] He also has directed numerous theatrical productions, including "The Merchant of Venice" at the Barbara and Art Culver Center for the Arts, and written extensively about the play in "Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies:" The Triumph of the Golden Fleece: Women, Money, Religion, and Power in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/shofar/v031/31.3.russin.html

While at UCLA, Russin was Story Editor on the campus sitcom Good News, Bad News, and was awarded two Jack Nicholson Awards for excellence in screenwriting. He also directed several short films, was twice a finalist in Chanticleer's "Discovery" program for new directors, and has won or been a finalist in the ScriptPIMP, The Movie Deal, Award Winning Screenwriters, Northwest Film Forum, and other competitions.^[8]

Personal life

Born and raised in Wyoming and Italy, Russin currently lives in Los Angeles. He also works as a sculptor, and has taught art, literature and art history.^[9]

References

As of 13 February 2012, this article is derived in whole or in part from faculty.ucr.edu. The copyright holder has licensed the content in a manner that permits reuse under CC BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed. The original text was at "Robin Russin".