The Literary Estate of
N. Richard Nash
1913 — 2000
Playwright, screenwriter, and novelist of the American mid-century, author of The Rainmaker, translated into nearly forty languages and still performed around the world.
Playwright, screenwriter, and novelist of the American mid-century, author of The Rainmaker, translated into nearly forty languages and still performed around the world.
Nash arrived in Hollywood as a screenwriter during the studio era, and it was there that his distinctive voice first reached a national audience. He wrote for the screen across the 1940s and 50s, among his credits the Ann Sheridan film noir Nora Prentiss (1947), The Sainted Sisters, Dear Wife, Mara Maru, and Helen of Troy, before adapting one of the great American musicals, Porgy and Bess, for its 1959 film. He was also among that select circle of writers working in live television during what came to be called the Golden Age of the medium.
His enduring fame, however, belongs to the theatre. In 1954 The Rainmaker opened on Broadway: the story of Lizzie Curry, a plain and clever woman in a drought-stricken Western town, and Starbuck, the silver-tongued confidence man who promises to bring the rain; and, in the bargain, persuades her of her own beauty. The play became a staple of stages large and small in nearly forty languages, was filmed in 1956 with Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster, and was reborn in 1963 as the acclaimed musical 110 in the Shade. Nash returned to Broadway across the decades with The Young and Fair, See the Jaguar, Girls of Summer, the Lucille Ball vehicle Wildcat, and the Kander & Ebb musical The Happy Time.
In his later years Nash turned to the novel. East Wind, Rain drew on his wartime service with the Office of War Information and took seven years to research; Cry Macho (1975), the tale of a worn-down horseman sent to retrieve a boy from Mexico, found a remarkable second life on screen decades later. He also wrote, under the pen name John Roc, work of a more experimental cast. Across every form he chose, Nash wrote about hope held against hard odds, the through-line of a career that ran from the soundstage to the page.
The catalog runs deep, but these two are in front of audiences today: on screen and on the page.
Nash’s 1975 novel of a broken-down ranch hand hired to bring a man’s son home from Mexico, a meditation on aging, dignity, and second chances. Adapted into the 2021 feature film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, the story has reached a new generation of readers and viewers.
NovelFeature FilmAvailable NowThe play that defined Nash’s career and the beloved musical it became. Both are continuously licensed for production worldwide and remain favorites of regional, university, and community theatres; and a perennial source of audition monologues.
Stage PlayMusicalLicensableA representative selection of works written as N. Richard Nash, with the path to license or purchase each.
Whatever you have in mind (a stage production, a reprint, a film), here is exactly where to go.
Performance rights, scripts, and scores for The Rainmaker, 110 in the Shade, and the other stage works are handled by Concord Theatricals (incorporating Samuel French and Tams-Witmark).
Browse Nash at Concord →Cry Macho, East Wind, Rain, and the other novels are published and distributed by Penguin Random House and available through booksellers worldwide.
View the books →Adaptation, option, and media inquiries (and rights to estate-held works including the John Roc titles) are handled directly by the estate.
Contact the estate →For film and television options, press and research requests, and rights to estate-held works. For routine play and musical licensing, please use Concord Theatricals above; it is the fastest route.
nrichardnash@gmail.com