Mark Medoff (March 18, 1940 – April 23, 2019) was an American playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. His play Children of a Lesser God received both the Tony Award and the Olivier Award. He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Writers Guild of America Best Adapted Screenplay Award for the film script of Children of a Lesser God and for a Cable ACE Award for his HBO Premiere movie, Apology. He also received an Obie Award for his play When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? Medoff's feature film Refuge was released in 2010. When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? was adapted into a film with a screenplay by Medoff in 1979. Biography Early life Medoff was born on 18 March 1940 in Mount Carmel, Illinois, to a Jewish family, the son of Thelma Irene (Butt), a psychologist, and Lawrence R. Medoff, a physician. He was raised in Miami Beach. In 1967, while working as an instructor at the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute in Washington, D.C., he wrote his first play, The Wager. His first play to be staged in New York City was When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, which won him the 1974 Drama Desk and Obie Awards for Outstanding New Playwright. Education Medoff received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Miami and his Master's from Stanford University. Medoff also received an honorary degree in 1981 from Gallaudet University. Awards and nominations Medoff's big breakthrough and most famous work was 1979's Children of a Lesser God, which won him the Tony, Drama Desk, and Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Play. Medoff was back on Broadway again with the staging of his play Prymate in 2005. Medoff's screen credits include adaptations of his plays Red Ryder and Children of a Lesser God, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, BAFTA, and Writers Guild of America Award, Clara's Heart (for which he cast, and subsequently "discovered", Neil Patrick Harris), and City of Joy. In 2000, he produced and directed the documentary Who Fly on Angels’ Wings, about a mobile pediatric unit traveling through the under-served regions of southern New Mexico, and the following year he directed the feature film Children on Their Birthdays, based on the short story by Truman Capote. Teaching Medoff was co-founder of the American Southwest Theatre Company and head of the Department of Theatre Arts for nine