Rick Cleveland

Rick Cleveland
Rick Cleveland
Occupation	Television writer, consulting producer, screenwriter, playwright, monologist
Education	University of Iowa (MFA)
Notable works	Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Mad Men

Rick Cleveland is an American television writer, playwright, and monologist, best known for writing on the HBO original series Six Feet Under and NBC's The West Wing. His 2011 play The Rail Splitter premiered at Carthage College as the third production of Carthage's annual New Play Initiative. The production also traveled to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (Region 3) in 2012.^[1]

Education

Cleveland, a graduate of the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa,^[2] is also a founding member of Chicago's American Blues Theater.

Career

Film

Cleveland, Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Matthew Chapman co-wrote the 2003 film Runaway Jury based on the book by John Grisham. He also wrote a 1998 screenplay for the independent film Jerry and Tom.

Television

In 2000, Cleveland and The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin won the Emmy Award for Best Writing for a Drama Series their episode "In Excelsis Deo". The episode originally aired during the 1999–2000 season. Cleveland and Sorkin also won the Writers Guild of America Award for best episodic drama at the February 2001 ceremony for "In Excelsis Deo".^[3]

Cleveland worked on the HBO original series Six Feet Under throughout the show's five season run. Cleveland joined the crew as a writer and producer for the show's first season in 2001. He wrote the episode "The Trip". He was promoted to supervising producer for the second season in 2002. He wrote two further episodes – "Driving Mr. Mossback" and "The Liar and the Whore". He remained a supervising producer for the third season in 2003. He scripted two more episodes – "Nobody Sleeps" and "Death Works Overtime". He was promoted to co-executive producer for the fourth season in 2004. He wrote two more episodes – "In Case of Rapture" and "Grinding the Corn". He was promoted again to executive producer for the fifth and final season in 2005 and wrote his last episode, "Eat a Peach". He wrote eight episodes in total for the series.

Cleveland won the Jury Award for Best One Person Show at the 2006 US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado for his performance in "My Buddy Bill", about his fictional friendship with President Bill Clinton, a monologue play filmed on June 15, 2007, for a Comedy Central Special and DVD.

He served as writer for the AMC television drama Mad Men for the show's second season in 2008. He was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the second season.^[4]

Cleveland recently served as a consulting producer and writer on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie.

Filmography

Year	Title	Notes
1998	Jerry and Tom	Film, as writer, producer and actor
1999	The West Wing	TV series, wrote episodes: "In Excelsis Deo", with Aaron Sorkin "Enemies" (story) with Patrick Caddell and Lawrence O'Donnell produced 21 episodes
2001–2005	Six Feet Under	TV series, wrote episodes: "The Trip" "Driving Mr. Mossback" "The Liar and the Whore" "Nobody Sleeps", with Alan Ball "Death Works Overtime" "In Case of Rapture" "Grinding The Corn" "Eat a Peach" produced 36 episodes
2008	My Buddy Bill	TV film, 50 minute stand-up routine written and performed by Rick Cleveland
2008	Mad Men	TV series, wrote episode: "The Benefactor", with Matthew Weiner produced 5 episodes
2009–2010	Nurse Jackie	TV series, wrote episodes: "Tiny Bubbles" "Pill-O-Mattix" "Candyland" "What the Day Brings" produced 19 episodes
2010	Scoundrels	TV series, wrote episodes: "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire" "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" produced 4 episodes
2013	Under the Dome	TV series, wrote episode: "The Fire" produced 4 episodes
2013	Legit	TV series, wrote all first-season episodes except the pilot, with Peter O'Fallon and Jim Jefferies
2013	House of Cards	TV series, wrote episodes: "Chapter 4" "Chapter 9" produced 3 episodes
2013	Archer	TV series, wrote episode: "Sea Tunt: Part II", with Adam Reed
2016	The Man in the High Castle	TV series, wrote episodes: "Loose Lips" "Duck and Cover"
2017	Inhumans	TV series, wrote episodes: "Divide and Conquer" "...And Finally: Black Bolt"
2018	Claws	TV series, wrote episode: "Russian Navy"
2019	Insatiable	TV series, wrote episode: "Dead Girl"

References

^ "New Play Initiative".
^ "About Us | Theatre Arts | the University of Iowa".
^ "Writers Guild Awards Winners". WGA. 2010. Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved April 15, 2010.
^ "2009 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees Announced". WGA. 2008. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2008.

External links

Rick Cleveland at IMDb
Blog Entries by Rick Cleveland at The Huffington Post
Rick Cleveland at Comedy Central
Cleveland, Rick. "I Was the Dumb Looking Guy with the Wire-Rimmed Glasses". Fresh Yarn. Retrieved January 17, 2007.

[1] "New Play Initiative".

[2] "About Us | Theatre Arts | the University of Iowa".

[WGA_01_Official-3] "Writers Guild Awards Winners". WGA. 2010. Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved April 15, 2010.

[WGA_09_Official-4] "2009 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees Announced". WGA. 2008. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2008.

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v t e Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
1950s	Reginald Rose for Twelve Angry Men (1955)
1960s	Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone (1960) Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone (1961) Reginald Rose for The Defenders (1962) Robert Thom & Reginald Rose for "The Madman" (1963) Ernest Kinoy for "Blacklist" / Rod Serling for "It's Mental Work" (1964) David Karp for "The 700 Year Old Gang" (1965) Millard Lampell for "Eagle in a Cage" (1966) Bruce Geller for "Mission: Impossible" (1967) Loring Mandel for "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (1968) JP Miller for "The People Next Door" (1969)
1970s	Richard Levinson & William Link for "My Sweet Charlie" (1970) Joel Oliansky for "To Taste of Death But Once" (1971) Richard Levinson & William Link for "Death Lends a Hand" (1972) John McGreevey for "The Scholar" (1973) Joanna Lee for "The Thanksgiving Story" (1974) Howard Fast for "Benjamin Franklin: The Ambassador" (1975) Sherman Yellen for "John Adams: Lawyer" (1976) William Blinn & Ernest Kinoy for "Show #2" (1977) Gerald Green for "Holocaust" (1978) Michele Gallery for "Dying" (1979)
1980s	Seth Freeman for "Cop" (1980) Michael Kozoll & Steven Bochco for "Hill Street Station" (1981) Steven Bochco & Michael Kozoll & Jeff Lewis & Michael Wagner & Anthony Yerkovich for "Freedom's Last Stand" (1982) David Milch for "Trial by Fury" (1983) John Ford Noonan, John Masius & Tom Fontana for "The Women" (1984) Patricia Green for "Who Said It's Fair, Part 2" (1985) Tom Fontana, John Masius & Joe Tinker for "Time Heals, Parts I & II" (1986) Steven Bochco & Terry Louise Fisher for "The Venus Butterfly" (1987) Paul Haggis & Marshall Herskovitz for "Business as Usual" (1988) Joseph Dougherty for "First Day/Last Day" (1989)
1990s	David E. Kelley for "Blood, Sweat, and Fears" (1990) David E. Kelley for "On the Toad Again" (1991) Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider for "Seoul Mates" (1992) Tom Fontana for "Three Men and Adena" (1993) Ann Biderman for "Steroid Roy" (1994) Lance A. Gentile for "Love's Labor Lost" (1995) Darin Morgan for "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (1996) David Milch, Stephen Gaghan and Michael R. Perry for "Where's Swaldo?" (1997) David Milch, Nicholas Wootton and Bill Clark for "Lost Israel: Part II" (1998) James Manos Jr. and David Chase for "College" (1999)
2000s	Rick Cleveland & Aaron Sorkin for "In Excelsis Deo" (2000) Mitchell Burgess & Robin Green for "Employee of the Month" (2001) Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran for "12:00 a.m. – 1:00 a.m." (2002) Mitchell Burgess & David Chase & Robin Green for "Whitecaps" (2003) Terence Winter for "Long Term Parking" (2004) David Shore for "Three Stories" (2005) Terence Winter for "Members Only" (2006) David Chase for "Made in America" (2007) Matthew Weiner for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (2008) Kater Gordon & Matthew Weiner for "Meditations in an Emergency" (2009)
2010s	Erin Levy & Matthew Weiner for "Shut the Door. Have a Seat." (2010) Jason Katims for "Always" (2011) Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon & Gideon Raff for "Pilot" (Homeland) (2012) Henry Bromell for "Q&A" (2013) Moira Walley-Beckett for "Ozymandias" (2014) David Benioff & D. B. Weiss for "Mother's Mercy" (2015) David Benioff & D. B. Weiss for "Battle of the Bastards" (2016) Bruce Miller for "Offred" (2017) Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg for "START" (2018) Jesse Armstrong for "Nobody Is Ever Missing" (2019)
2020s	Jesse Armstrong for "This Is Not for Tears" (2020) Peter Morgan for "War" (2021) Jesse Armstrong for "All the Bells Say" (2022) Jesse Armstrong for "Connor's Wedding" (2023) Will Smith for "Negotiating with Tigers" (2024)