Author.
Ron Destro has trained and worked as a playwright, screenwriter, novelist and book editor. He received the Kennedy Center New American Play Award for his stage play HIROSHIMA, for which Yoko Ono wrote the original score, that ran at New York’s Theatre for a New City. His writing mentors include Pulitzer Prize-winner Tad Mosel, Jack Gelber, and Robert Hedley at the Univ. of Iowa’s Writers’ Program.
Now out from Contempo Publishing…
AWARDS:
BEST NEW AUTHOR
Audio Book
Reviewer’s Award
2023
BEST AUDIOBOOK
GOLD MEDAL
Historical Fiction Co
2023
BOOK OF THE YEAR
2nd Runner-Up
Historical Fiction Co
WINNER
GOLD MEDAL
BEST FICTION AUDIOBOOK
Independent Publisher
Book Awards
FINALIST
HAWTHORNE PRIZE
American Wiriting Awards
“A beautiful story… a joy to read.”
- Award-winning actor Sir Derek Jacobi
“All the mystery and suspense of Harry Potter and even more substance.”
- William Niederkorn, NY Times, Brooklyn Rail
“Marvelously amusing, deeply passionate, and brilliantly entertaining.”
- Steve Cuden, co-creator, Jekyll & Hyde,
The Musical
“So vibrant, so ‘Shakespearean’ in its storytelling, language and humor.”
-Robin Maxwell, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn
“Poetic, humorous, shockingly original.”
- Malcolm McKay, Shakespeare’s Globe, RADA
Plays covered include:
Hamlet The Winter's Tale
King Lear The Tempest
Richard III Twelfth Night
Henry IV Pt 1 Much Ado About Nothing
Sonnets
Featuring insight, character & text analysis, personal anecdotes, and some humor from:
SIR DEREK JACOBI DAME DIANA RIGG
TIM PIGOTT-SMITH FRANK LANGELLA
F MURRAY ABRAHAM JEREMY IRONS
GLENDA JACKSON MICHAEL YORK
RON COOK MALCOLM MCKAY
PRIYANGA BURFORD JOHN BARTON
CICELY BERRY
What if everything you thought you knew about William Shakespeare was a lie to protect the very crown of England? That is the premise of my shortlisted historical detective story, THE STARRE THE MOONE, THE SUNNE.
In 1624 London, a brave printer is executed, a portly poet is kidnapped, a Stratford-upon-Avon grave is emptied, King James is put into a panic, many swashes are buckled, and things are never what they appear to be, all because brave Nicholas and beautiful Valentina are about to discover and reveal the true identity of "William Shake-speare." This is a timely tale that touches on the powerful love of fathers, the perils of the plague, the joys of turnips, and the mysterious life and tragic death of the Bard of Avon.
Now out from
Contempo Publishing.
Paperback, ebook & audiobook
narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi
2020 Book.
The Shakespeare Masterclasses, published by Routledge, is available as an eBook, hardcover or paperback. Learn from the masters in this extensive and revealing collection of in-depth classes, interviews and acting exercises with many of the world’s most renowned Shakespearean actors. Each masterclass was conducted by Ron Destro, who put this book together.
New expanded edition
coming soon at a lower price.
Featuring insight, character & text analysis, personal anecdotes, and some humor from:
SIR DEREK JACOBI
DAME DIANA RIGG
TIM PIGOTT-SMITH
FRANK LANGELLA
F MURRAY ABRAHAM
JEREMY IRONS
GLENDA JACKSON
MICHAEL YORK
RON COOK
MALCOLM MCKAY
PRIYANGA BURFORD
JOHN BARTON
CICELY BERRY
Plays covered include:
Hamlet King Lear Richard III Much Ado About Nothing
The Winter's Tale The Tempest Twelfth Night Henry IV Pt 1 the Sonnets
From the FOREWORD:
This book by Ron Destro should be required reading in every theater course, acting class and directing class, and should be in the library of every critic as well, because it describes, as no one else can, “how to do it.”
It is mentoring on a personal level. A voice that speaks from years of classes with the most famous and accomplished actors, directors, writers, and producers among us. The artists who have shaped, and continue to shape, the theater as we now know it.
I don’t know of any book as detailed and as all-embracing as this one. I wish it had been available when I started out fifty-five years ago. It would have saved me a lot of heartache. Also, it’s a great read.
Ron Destro is one of those rare people of the theater who cares as deeply about the theater as anyone I’ve ever worked with, including Pina Bausch, Richard Foreman, Andrei Şerban, Miloš Forman, Lar Lubovitch and Twyla Tharp. His knowledge is extensive and accessible, not pompous. He invites all to the table. There is something for everyone in his joyous message. He introduces to all - all - the idea that Shakespeare is indeed a man for all ages. I consider it a privilege to know him and to have worked with him.
- F Murray Abraham
SCREENPLAYS.
INDIRA’S DAUGHTERS, a play and screenplay, which parallels an American and an India couple in New Delhi, dealing with east-west, male-female conflicts, culminating in a tragic dowry-burning.
THE STARRE, THE MOONE, THE SUNNE, an action-packed Elizabethan murder mystery about the swift execution by King James of printer Nathan North, whose solving just happens to reveal the true identity of “William Shake-speare.”
STAGE PLAYS.
For a description of original Destro plays, please see the Rights Page.