
Aaron Ricciardi is a New York City-based writer, performer, and educator, originally from Coral Springs, Florida. He is currently a Core Apprentice at the Playwrights’ Center, a member of Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers' Group, and a lyricist in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Work includes Only Child; A Bushel and a Peck, a play for one actor; Nice Nails; Hanukkah Harriet, a play for young people; The Travels: an Epic play with songs (New York Musical Festival production); Resting Bitch Face (Tennessee Williams Festival One-Act Play Contest runner-up, judge Lisa D’Amour); Can I See Your Face?; Full of It, or Diana; The Canvasser; The Cousin With The Eyebrows; The Mush Pot; Yale; Fat Woman In Velvet; and Him & Her & Gay Men In General (national finalist for Gary Garrison National Ten-Minute Play Award). Aaron graduated from the Theatre program at Northwestern University, where he studied playwriting under Laura Schellhardt, and he received his MFA in Playwriting from Indiana University, where he studied under Peter Gil-Sheridan. Aaron is currently on faculty at SUNY New Paltz. www.aaronricciardi.com
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Plays
In a landscape of distorted and fractured memories, a teenage prince meets a lonely schoolteacher and becomes deeply intertwined in her home, her marriage, and her fantasies. As their relationship intensifies, boundaries fall away, familial roles are usurped, and childhood is stolen, changing The Prince's life forever.
In a nail salon on the outskirts of New York City, immigrant ladies spend their days toiling like servants over the fingers and toes of obnoxious customers. This modest shop is the livelihood of a Korean-American family, who dream of making it big in America—or, really, just scraping by, especially now that the new salon next to the Whole Foods down the street is siphoning off their customers. As word spreads of labor department crackdowns, the salon owners’ daughter fights to modernize this tired establishment, all while growing captivated by a new customer who is not like the others, forcing her to examine the value of identity, government regulations, and Disney movies.
a play for young people (to see and/or do)
It’s December. Shayna, the only Jewish kid in her class, would give anything to not have to celebrate Hanukkah and instead celebrate her favorite thing in the world: Christmas! But this all changes when she is visited by the spirit of a bubby from the Old Country, who takes her on a journey through Jewish history, large and small, and teaches her the value of tradition and of miracles, large and small.
Welcome to the U.S. of A. Other countries suffer biblical consequences for their filthy ways, but the U.S. of A. is the most perfect place on Earth — at least, that’s what Mr. Travel preaches every day on the nation’s only TV show. A trippy dystopian tale with an eclectic soundtrack, this Epic play with songs follows Teeny, Mr. Travel’s rule-breaking daughter. Teetering on adulthood and perplexed by this cruel world, Teeny learns to see past smoke and mirrors… and she starts a revolution. Mashing up styles that range from Brecht to dystopian fiction to South Park, this show turns the genre of musical theatre on its ear.
Jeff is a Midwestern Jewish liberal who manages a Walgreens. Kirk is a right-wing Evangelical Christian who owns one of America’s largest companies. By day, they lead humdrum lives just like the rest of us, but, at night, these two closeted men rendezvous in an Internet chat room and project their fantasies onto each other. When their love gets all-consuming and all too real, these guys must strip themselves of their digital fictions and make a decision: remain in the closet, or finally live their truth.
Successes
Core Apprentice at Playwrights' Center, 2019-2020. Mentored by Taylor Mac.
Member of Clubbed Thumb Early-Career Writers' Group, 2019-2020. Mentored by Rachel Sheinkin.
The Travels was produced as part of the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival. It was directed by Travis Greisler and produced by Cohen Theatrical. The cast featured Luba Mason and Michelle Rios.