Richard Seff has been an actor, a casting agent, librettist, columnist-critic, and novelist.  His Broadway career as an actor includes: Darkness at Noon (1951 with Claude Rains then Edward G. Robinson on the road), The Norman Conquests (1975), Herzl (1976), The End of the World (1984), and The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 (1987).  As a playwright, his plays on Broadway and regionally include: Paris is Out! (with Molly Picon and Sam Levene, on the road with Pat O’Brien), Shine!: The Horatio Alger Musical, The Whole Ninth Floor (with Alan Alda), Consenting Adults (with A.C.T.).  His first novel was Take a Giant Step: A Romance in Radio, about his life in radio, then, Come Hear the Music Play: Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent for John Kander; and an autobiography titled: Supporting Player: My Life Upon The Wicked Stage documenting his life as performer, casting agent, playwright, investor, and critic.  Returning to acting after being a casting agent, Seff became a member of Circle Repertory Theatre run by Marshall W. Mason.  Plays done with Circle Rep include: HOT L BALTIMORE (1973), THE DIVINERS (1980), CHILDE BYRON (1981), ANGELS FALL (1982), RICHARD II (1982, with William Hurt), THE SEAGULL (1983), THE MUSICAL COMEDY MURDERS OF 1940 (1987), ONLY YOU (1987), SUMMER AND SMOKE (1988), and THE TRUTH-TELLER (1995, by Joyce Carol Oates).  Other Off-Broadway acting credits include: BIG FISH, LITTLE FISH (1974), MODIGLIANI (1979), MY FAIR LADY (1990), ESTABLISHED PRICE (1990), COUNTESS MITZI (1991), and THE COUNTESS (1999-2001).  In his early acting career he was on radio and live television, and in the reincarnation of his acting career continued to do radio, shows-made-for television, and daytime and evening television appearing in almost every popular show.  As an agent he co-founded, with Stark Hesseltine and Leo Bookman, the HBS Agency.  In 2004 he created The Richard Seff Award to be given out annually by Actors’ Equity Association.  This award is a one-time $1,000 honorarium to a male and female actor 50 years or older, and a member of Actors’ Equity for 25 years or more, for the best performance in a featured, unfeatured, or supporting role in a Broadway or Off-Broadway production.  For the Broadway production of his musical Shine!: The Horatio Alger Musical he won a National Music Theatre Festival Award in 2001.  In 1982 for his performance in Lanford Wilson’s ANGELS FALL he won the Carbonnell Award for Best Supporting Actor In A Play.

Richard Seff who grew up in Brooklyn and Manhattan, completed 8^th Grade by the time he was 12 years old, and High School by the age of 14.  An aunt took him to his first play, and, as he had previously only seen movies every Saturday, he was intrigued by the live actors and the fact they would return the next night to do the same show.  He started his acting career on live radio where the audience could not see how young he was, and live television, one show filming at the Wanamaker Store in downtown Manhattan.  In one of his live television appearances, Leave It To Papa, he set the door he walked through on fire while holding a burning cigarette, and calmly asked his ‘hostess’ for a glass of water and put the fire out himself as the cameras could not stop.  He was ‘discovered’ and cast in his first Broadway show Darkness at Noon (in 1951 with Claude Rains, and when it went on the road, Edward G. Robinson who took over the lead).  He toured America, and when he came back had difficulty getting work.  He took an office job with Audrey Wood who had a prime talent agency with her husband William Liebling serving such clients as Tennessee Williams, William Inge, Arthur Kopit, Carson McCullers, Yukio Mishima, Brian Friel, Eve Merriam, and Robert Anderson to name a few.  Quickly Seff became experienced as a talent agent, and when Liebling (who represented actors and directors) retired, Wood (who represented playwrights) asked him to join her when the agency merged with MCA (Music Corporation of America) in 1954.  While there Seff met Stark Hesseltine (covering theater contracts), and Leo Bookman (covering television and film contracts) and who co-founded with them their own agency HBS, Seff covering musical theater.  His clients included Chita Rivera (whom he discovered), Jack Klugman, John Kander and Fred Ebb, (whom he brought together), Ron Field, and Julie Andrews.  He also worked closely with Ethel Merman, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Jerry Herman, and Liza Minnelli.  By 1974, at the height of his agenting career, Seff decided to return to acting, the love of his life.  When he became a member of Circle Repertory Company he performed in many other Off-Broadway theaters while also performing in television and film.  Now retired from acting, and having written autobiographical books on the business, he continues to review theater for many periodicals like Broadway World and The New York Times while brushing up his own plays for future productions.