# Paul Rudnick

Paul Rudnick (born December 29, 1957) is an American writer known for his plays, which have been produced on and off Broadway and worldwide. He has also written the screenplays for several films, including Sister Act, Addams Family Values, Jeffrey, and In & Out. Rudnick also wrote film criticism under the pseudonym Libby Gelman-Waxner.

## Early life

Rudnick was born and raised in a Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey. His mother, Selma, was a publicist and his father, Norman, was a physicist. Rudnick attended Piscataway High School. After earning a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1977, he moved to New York.

## Plays and novels

Rudnick's first play was Poor Little Lambs, a comedy about a female Yale student's attempt to join The Whiffenpoofs, an all-male singing group. Produced in 1982, the play featured Kevin Bacon, Bronson Pinchot, and Blanche Baker in its cast. Rudnick's first novel, Social Disease, a satiric of New York nightlife, was released in 1986.
In the late 1980s, Rudnick moved into the top floor of a Greenwich Village brownstone, which had once been the 1920s home of the actor John Barrymore. This inspired Rudnick's play I Hate Hamlet, about a young TV star who is visited by the ghost of Barrymore before acting in a production of Hamlet. The play was produced on Broadway and gained notoriety when Nicol Williamson, the actor playing Barrymore, began attacking his co-star during a dueling scene.
In 1993, Rudnick's Off-Broadway show Jeffrey achieved success. The play had initially been turned down by many New York theaters because it was a comedy about AIDS. However, after a successful run at the WPA Theater in New York City, the show transferred to a commercial run. The play ran from December 31, 1992, to February 14, 1993, at the WPA Theatre. It then transferred to the off-Broadway Minetta Lane Theatre, running from March 6, 1993, to January 16, 1994. Rudnick received acclaim for Jeffrey. Rudnick won an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and the John Gassner Playwrighting Award for Jeffrey.
Rudnick's later plays included The Naked Eye, which depicted a photographer similar to Robert Mapplethorpe, and in 1998, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, which was inspired by the remark, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." In Rudnick's revisionist take on the Bible, God makes Adam and Steve, along with the first lesbians, Jane and Mabel. While the play was protested by religious groups, it still moved for a commercial run.
Rudnick also wrote Valhalla, which entwined the lives of a World War II soldier from Texas with Ludwig, the Mad King of Bavaria,; Regrets Only, a drawing room comedy starring Christine Baranski and George Grizzard,; and The New Century, a collection of related one-acts, which was produced at Lincoln Center and for which the actress Linda Lavin won a Drama Desk Award. Rudnick has more recently contributed two pieces, The Gay Agenda and My Husband, to the Off-Broadway anthology Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays. My Husband was released by Playing on Air as a radio play on podcast and public radio featuring Michael Urie and Harriet Harris, directed by Claudia Weill.
In September 2017, Rudnick's play Big Night opened at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, where it played through October. Wendie Malick starred in this Oscar-themed tragicomedy, which was described by as "an often amusing but mostly muddled ensemble piece."

## Screenwriting

Rudnick has worked as an uncredited script doctor on films including The Addams Family and The First Wives Club. He was credited through the pseudonym "Joseph Howard" for his work on Sister Act, which was originally intended for Bette Midler. The screenplay went through many revisions and was re-fashioned for Whoopi Goldberg. At this time, Rudnick refused to have his real name associated with the script. He received sole writing credit for Addams Family Values, In & Out, and the screen version of his play Jeffrey.
Rudnick's later screenwriting works included Isn't She Great and 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives. His script Coastal Elites, a socially-distanced film about the COVID-19 pandemic, began airing on HBO in September of 2020.

## Other writing

In 2011, HarperCollins published I Shudder,, a collection of autobiographical essays written by Rudnick. Since 1998, Rudnick has contributed over fifty short humor pieces to The New Yorker. His work appears in the collections Fierce Pajamas and Disquiet, Please.
In 1988, Rudnick began producing satirical film criticism for Premiere Magazine writing from the perspective of a married woman living in Manhattan named Libby Gelman-Waxner. A collection of these columns was published in 1994 under the title If You Ask Me. Rudnick (as Libby) resumed writing a monthly column for Entertainment Weekly in 2011 and occasionally contributes reviews to The New Yorker.
Rudnick's first young adult novel, Gorgeous was published by Scholastic in 2013. Publishers Weekly, in a review, stated that the book included "writing that's hilarious, profane and profound (often within a single sentence.)" Scholastic also published his second Young Adult novel It's All Your Fault which Booklist called "A laugh-out-loud, irreverent tale built on as much snarkiness as sweetness. A riotously good read." His novel, Playing the Palace, was published by Berkley in May of 2021. In 2023, Simon & Schuster published Rudnick's novel Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style. In another review, Publisher's Weekly called the book "dazzling and funny." His novel What Is Wrong With You? will be published by Simon&Schuster in March 2025.

## Personal life

Rudnick has been in a long-term relationship with his partner, John Raftis, since 1993. Their partnership is often reflected in Rudnick's work, which celebrates LGBTQ+ themes and relationships.