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David William Rabe (born March 10, 1940)^[1] is an American playwright and screenwriter. He won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1972 (Sticks and Bones) and also received Tony Award nominations for Best Play in 1974 (In the Boom Boom Room), 1977 (Streamers) and 1985 (Hurlyburly).

Rabe was born on March 10, 1940, inDubuque, Iowa,^[2] of German and Irish descent, the son of Ruth (née McCormick), a department store worker, and William Rabe, a teacher and meat packer. He was raised in a devout Catholic family.^{[citation needed]}

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Rabe wasdrafted into theU.S. Army in 1965 and served in a medical unit during theVietnam War. After leaving the Army in 1967, Rabe returned toVillanova University, studying writing and earning an M.A. in 1968.

During this time, he began work on the playSticks and Bones, in which the family represents the ugly underbelly of the seemingly stereotypical Nelson family (whose names matchthe main characters of the sunny 1950s television series—Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky) when they are faced with their embittered and hopeless son David returning home from Vietnam as a blinded vet.

Rabe is known for his loose trilogy of plays drawing on his experiences as an Army draftee inVietnam,Sticks and Bones (1969), theTony Award-winningThe Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971), andStreamers (1976).

He also wroteHurlyburly (both the play and the screenplay forthe film version), and the screenplays for the Vietnam War dramaCasualties of War (1989) and thefilm adaptation ofJohn Grisham'sThe Firm (1993). Rabe also wrote a screenplay forFirst Blood for producerMartin Bregman withMike Nichols interested in directing and the role ofJohn Rambo written forAl Pacino, but it was not filmed because Pacino found it "too extreme" and declined to appear in it.^[3]

A collection of Rabe's manuscripts is housed in the Mugar Memorial Library, atBoston University.

• 1967Rockefeller Foundation Grant^{[citation needed]}
• 1970Associated Press Award, for a series onDaytop addict rehabilitation program^{[citation needed]}
• 1971Obie Award for distinguished playwriting forThe Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel^{[citation needed]}
• 1971Drama Desk Award forThe Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel^{[citation needed]}
• 1971Elizabeth Hull/Kate Warriner Award fromDramatists Guild forThe Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel andStreamers^{[citation needed]}
• 1972New York Drama Critics Circle citation^{[citation needed]}
• 1972Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play in 1972 forSticks and Bones^{[citation needed]}
• 1972Tony Award for Best Play in 1972 forSticks and Bones^{[citation needed]}
• 1974 Tony Award nominee for Best Play forIn the Boom Boom Room^{[citation needed]}
• 1976National Institute and American Academy Award in Literature^{[citation needed]}
• 1976Guggenheim Fellowship^{[citation needed]}
• 1977 Tony Award nominee for Best Play forStreamers^{[citation needed]}
• 1977New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play forStreamers^{[citation needed]}
• 1985 Tony Award nominee for Best Play forHurlyburly^{[citation needed]}
• 2014PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award Master American Dramatist^[4][5]

• Chameleon (1959)
• The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971)
• Sticks and Bones (1971)
• The Orphan (1972)
• In the Boom Boom Room (1973)
• Burning (1974)
• The Crossing (1975)
• Streamers (1976)
• Goose and Tomtom (1982)
• Hurlyburly (1984)
• Those the River Keeps (1991)
• A Question of Mercy: Based upon the Journal by Richard Selzer (1997)
• The Dog Problem (2001)
• The Black Monk (2004)
• An Early History of Fire (2012)^[6]
• Good for Otto (2015)
• Visiting Edna (2016)

• I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982)
• Streamers (1983)
• Casualties of War (1989)
• State of Grace (with Dennis McIntyre, 1990)
• The Firm (with Robert Towne and David Rayfiel, 1993)
• Hurlyburly (1998)
• In the Boom Boom Room (adapted from his play, 1999)

• Recital of the Dog (1993)
• The Crossing Guard (novelization of the screenplay by Sean Penn, 1995)
• A Primitive Heart (2005)
• Dinosaurs on the Roof (2008)
• Mr. Wellington (children's book, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker, 2009)
• Girl by the Road at Night: A Novel of Vietnam (2010)
• Listening for Ghosts: A Novella and Four Short Stories (2022)

• David Rabe at theInternet Broadway Database
• David Rabe atIMDb
• Hollywood.com
• Answers.com
• Filmography atThe New York Times
• Encyclopædia Britannica
• David Rabe onCharlie Rose
• David Rabe collected news and commentary atThe New York Times

• Lahr, John (24 November 2008)."The Critics: Life and Letters: Land of Lost Souls".The New Yorker. Vol. 84, no. 38. pp. 114–120. Retrieved16 April 2009. "David Rabe's America"
• Radavich, David. "Collapsing Male Myths: Rabe's TragicomicHurlyburly."American Drama 3:1 (Fall 1993): 1–16.
• Radavich, David. "Rabe, Mamet, Shepard, and Wilson: Mid-American Male Dramatists of the 1970s and '80s."The Midwest Quarterly XLVIII: 3 (Spring 2007): 342–58.

• 1940 births
• Living people
• 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
• United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War
• American male screenwriters
• Obie Award recipients
• Writers from Dubuque, Iowa
• Villanova University alumni
• Tony Award winners
• Drama Desk Award winners
• American male dramatists and playwrights
• Screenwriters from New York (state)
• Screenwriters from Iowa
• United States Army soldiers
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American screenwriters
• 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
• 20th-century American novelists
• 21st-century American novelists
• 21st-century American male writers
• Novelists from New York (state)
• Novelists from Iowa

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