Tony-winning playwright Richard Greenberg has died following a battle with cancer, per social media tributes from many of his colleagues, including director Robert Falls and Tony-winning actor Denis O'Hare. He was 67.

Mr. Greenberg is probably best known for his 2002 play Take Me Out, about a star Major League Baseball player that comes out as gay. After closely following the Yankees' historic 1999 season, Greenberg was inspired to make the sport the topic of his next work. At the time, no player had come out publicly while still active professionally, making Greenberg's work an imagined version of a scenario that, particularly at the time, was thought to be imminent. Twenty-three years later and there has been no such public revelation, though several players have openly discussed their homosexuality after retirement, including Glenn Burke, Billy Bean, and TJ House.

The play made Mr. Greenberg a two-time Pulitzer finalist (his first was for Three Days of Rain in 1998) and a Tony winner. The play was the most Tony-winning of the 2003 season, winning Best Direction for Joe Mantello and Best Featured Actor in a Play for O'Hare along with Best Play. Second Stage Theater mounted a Broadway revival in 2022, which won Best Revival of a Play and Best Featured Actor in a Play for Jesse Tyler Ferguson at the 2022 Tonys.

Mr. Greenberg had an English degree from Princeton, and later went through Yale School of Drama's Playwriting program. His The Bloodletters was produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre Off-Broadway while he was still a student at the latter, in 1985. His breakout success came with Eastern Standard, about four diners thrust into an unlikely friendship across lines of class and sexuality in the New York City of the late '80s. After a premiere at Seattle Repertory Theatre, the work came to Off-Broadway via Manhattan Theatre Club in 1988, boasting a cast that included Dylan Baker, Peter Frechette, Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Conroy, Barbara Garrick, and Anne Meara. A complete sell-out, the show was such a success that it moved to Broadway the same year, Greenberg's Main Stem debut.

Later works would include The Dazzle, The American Plan, Life Under Water, The Author's Voice, Dance of Death (an adaptation of Strindberg), The Assembled Parties, Our Mother's Brief Affair, and The Babylon Line. Though not a frequent writer of musicals, he did pen a new book for Roundabout Theatre Company's 2008 revival of Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, and the book to Michael Korie and Scott Frankel's Far From Heaven, adapted from the 2002 film. The latter work premiered Off-Broadway in 2013.

"Hard to believe the genius that was Richard Greenberg is no more," wrote O'Hare on Instagram. "I owe him more than I could possibly say. He gave me the greatest gift ever—a beautiful character to inhabit in a beautiful play. He also gave me 2 of my best friends—Lisa Peterson and Linda Emond. We all met and worked on Rich's one act The Author's Voice at Remains Theatre in 1987 in a festival of one acts called Sneaky Feelings. I have a sneaky feeling of grief mixed with gratitude for this man. RIP Rich."

"For over 30 years, it’s been one of life’s great pleasures to know Rich and his writing," wrote Falls on BlueSky. "Dazzling, humane, wildly funny. From his early breakthrough with Eastern Standard through the quiet intricacy of Three Days of Rain to the Pulitzer-[finalist] Take Me Out, his plays held a mirror up—not just to society but to the strange inner workings of the human heart. He wrote about baseball and betrayal, family and fame, loneliness and grace—always with elegance, irony, and a touch of something ineffable. He was also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. But he wore that brilliance lightly—often cloaked in hilarity, or tossed off in the driest, most devastating line at dinner. His kindness was real. His loss is enormous."

Mr. Greenberg's final play, Holiday (adapted from the Philip Barry play of the same name, about a romance between a working-class man and an upper-class woman) will premiere at the Goodman Theater in Chicago beginning January 31, 2026. Falls, who is directing, said that Mr. Greenberg's passing is, "a profound loss mid-process."

Mr. Greenberg is survived by brother Edward and his wife Janet Kain, niece Shana, and nephews Jonathan, Charlie, and Will. A commemorative event is being planned for the fall.