Willard Simms

Willard Simms is the author of 11 published plays,14 produced teleplays, and two television mini-series. Mr. Simms is an expert in biographical drama, and included in his theatre and television work are scripts on Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, George Washington, Benedict Arnold, William Mulholland, and a Mini-series on the life St. Francis of Assisi. His one person play, "Einstein: A Stage Portrait", won the 2014 New York Theater Solo Fest award for Best Biography. In early 2015 the play set all box office records at the Actors Summit Theatre in Akron, Ohio, receiving rave reviews. It has been produced all over the world, and was shown for three years on USA television. Mr. Simms original play about the life of Richard Wright, "Wright From America”, was one of the winners of the Juneteenth National Playwriting Competition in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of “POE!", an eleven character drama which won the Maltese Falcon Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Mr. Simms is President and Artistic Director of Theatre of Will (www.theatreofwill.org), a non-profit theater/education company based in Los Angeles, California. His newest play, running in Los Angeles, "Beckwourth" dramatises the true story of the life of the escaped slave, mountain man and Crow Indian Chief Jim Beckwourth, and demonstrates how the basic circumstances of certain lives can make a more interesting presentation than fiction.