Michael Rychlewski is a Chicago playwright whose play Chops premiered at Theater Wit in Chicago in 2016 to excellent reviews. Chops was recommended for consideration for the American Theater Critics Association annual ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, honoring new scripts produced outside New York.
Rychlewski’s work has appeared in many venues over the years. My Atget was performed at the 1994 Via Festival in Paris, Santa’s Helper was mounted at the 2007 Rhino Festival in Chicago, and Overtime was a finalist in the 1988 Sunset Center Theater Competition in Carmel. In 2008 Jemez Springs was a winner at American Theater Company’s Big Shoulders Competition, and As Ever, Jenny, was performed there as part of their 2011 10 X 10 Annual Fall Festival of New Plays. At Second City Tom and Jerry won the 2008 Best of the Tens competition. Over the last five years Michael has shared stories at thesideproject’s annual Festival of Story Telling. He has six full-length scripts currently circulating: Chops, A Fixed Standard of Conduct, 1989, Zephyr, What I Learned at the Movies and Santa’s Helper. They are all featured on this website.
In addition to writing plays, Rychlewski is also a poet. Night Driving, a book of his poems, was published by The Wine Press in 1984. Over the years his poems have appeared online and in print in various magazines: The Seattle Review, Agora, thescreamonline and Private Arts to name a few.
In his years as a high school drama teacher, three of his students have been finalists in The Pegasus Young Playwrights Competition, and one winner saw her play get a full five-week production in 2009. One of his students also placed 4th in the country in the 2012 August Wilson National Monologue Competition.
Michael enjoys traveling: India, China, North Africa, as well as most of Europe and the American West. He spent six months teaching in San Jose, Costa Rica, and two years teaching in Paris, France.
He is the husband of Janis Young and the father of Claire Young Rychlewski.
