Donald Freed

Donald Freed (born 1933) is an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and actor. He is associated with writing programs at the University of Southern California, and was Artist in Residence at the Workshop Theatre, University of Leeds, United Kingdom (Fall 2006 – Spring 2008), and Playwright in Residence at York Theatre Royal (Fall 2007 – Spring 2008), participating in a six-week Master Class in York in October and November 2007 ("Freed in Residence in York"). He has also been Playwright in Residence at Denison University, Ohio and taught at Loyola Marymount University.

His latest play, Patient #1 (draft posted on Another America), "set in 2009 at an elite psychiatric clinic in South Florida, imagines a heavily sedated President George W. Bush, after he has left the Oval Office" (Johnson). It was published in 2007 and is being staged at York Theatre Royal in early 2008 ("Donald Freed", Another America).

Personal life

Freed was born in Chicago, to a Jewish family. He was raised in Alexandria, Louisiana (Johnson, Mikulan), "where he lived mostly with his mother and stepfather, a successful merchant selling clothing for a time, then military gear, and later soft drinks. His biological father was an attorney. After World War II, when the wartime boom deflated and prices soared, his stepfather’s business collapsed and he committed suicide" (Johnson). " 'We’ve all known a Willy Loman in our life,' Freed said, referring to Arthur Miller's classic play, 'Death of a Salesman,' [emended] in which the protagonist Willy Loman commits suicide hoping that in death he may provide for his family. Freed's mother, who sold insurance 'in the back roads of Louisiana,' supported the family until she died of cancer at 42" (Johnson).