Official Website of Novelist & Playwright
LANCE RINGEL
Flower of Iowa
A Novel
IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Gold Winner (Fiction: Romance)
IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Silver Winner (LGBTQ+)
Lambda Literary Award Finalist (Gay Romance)
Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award Finalist (War & Military Fiction)
New York New Works Theatre Festival Finalist (Play Adaptation)
Two soldiers fall in love on the Western Front in a sprawling tale of courage and the resilience of the human spirit.
In Love with the Arrow Collar Man
A Play
Semi-Finalist in the 2016 New York New Works Theatre Festival and a successful run at Theatre 80 St. Marks, NY
Dramatizes the life of famed illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, and his years together with his muse, model, and lifelong love, Charles Beach.
Flash/Frozen
A Play
Currently in progress
The fates of two young men collide in a drama based on true events surrounding the tragic 1961 plane crash that took the lives of the U.S. Figure Skating Team.
Animal Story
A Musical (Book & Lyrics)
Semi-Finalist in the 2017 New York New Works Theatre Festival
A half-hour “mini-musical” about a diverse group of animals in a zoo who must resolve their differing ideas about how to deal with their situation.
At Home in the World/世界がわが家
(Original English Narration)
A cultural collaboration like no other.
Talented artists from four continents unite to create a series of memorable performances in Japan, the United States, and Uganda.
Photo by Keith Ferris
ABOUT LANCE
Lance Ringel’s career as a writer and journalist has spanned more than four decades. His novel Flower of Iowa, an epic romance between two soldiers in the First World War, has met with unexpected success in the United States and Europe, receiving accolades from Kirkus Reviews and Stephen Fry, among many others. His play In Love with the Arrow Collar Man, based on the true story of famed illustrator J.C. Leyendecker and his muse-lover Charles Beach, premiered at New York’s Theatre 80 St. Marks and has been performed in conjunction with a Leyendecker exhibition at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Both Arrow Collar Man and the musical Animal Story, for which Ringel wrote book and lyrics to Chuck Muckle’s score, made the semifinals of the New York New Works Theatre Festival. A stage adaptation of Flower of Iowa achieved the finals of the same festival, and a video adaptation of that production premiered online on Veterans Day 2020, hosted by the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem, which co-produced the Reynolda presentation of Arrow Collar Man.
At Vassar College, where he has worked for 20 years, Ringel was a principal writer for Vassar Voices, a staged reading honoring the college’s sesquicentennial, which premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Meryl Streep, Frances Sternhagen, and Lisa Kudrow. He also wrote the narrative for At Home in the World, a joint production of Vassar and Japan’s Ashinaga Foundation, which played in Tokyo, New York, Washington, D.C., and Kampala, Uganda, under the direction of John Caird.
Ringel also has had a lengthy career in public service. He served as Assistant Commissioner of Human Rights under New York Governor Mario Cuomo, at the National Gay Task Force under veteran LGBTQ+ advocate Virginia Apuzzo, and currently is a member of the Dutchess County (NY) Human Rights Commission. He is also, improbably, a medal-winning bowler, having scored a bronze in team competition at the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago and then a gold at the World Outgames a few weeks later in Montreal.
Ringel is currently at work on Flash/Frozen, another play based on true historical events. A native of central Illinois, he resides in both Poughkeepsie, New York, and New York City, with his spouse of 44 years, actor-composer-director Chuck Muckle.
UPCOMING EVENTS
LGBTQ+ Pride Book Reading
Wednesday, June 16 at 7-8 pm PST
June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month and Perfectly Queer will celebrate with a reading in LGBTQ+ historical fiction. Authors Lance Ringel (Flower of Iowa), Alan E. Rose (As if Death Summoned), and Anne Shade (Masquerade) will read from their LGBTQ+ historical novels set during World War One, the AIDS Crisis, and the Roaring Twenties. Lance will be joined by his husband actor-director-composer Chuck Muckle in a dramatic reading from his book.
Email perfectlyqueersf@gmail.com for the link or register via Facebook by clicking REGISTER NOW button below.
Buy the novels from Dog Eared Books Castro.
Flash/Frozen Special Video Presentation
Special online presentation on VIMEO.
Lance Ringel wrote Flash/Frozen for the stage, but the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to preclude live presentations of theater. While it ultimately will receive a world premiere in a live production with an audience in attendance, Ringel and director Chuck Muckle wanted some version of Flash/Frozen to be available as of February 15, 2021, the 60th anniversary of the central event in the play. They enlisted the considerable talents of filmmaker Camilo Rojas, who previously had collaborated with them on a video excerpt from Flower of Iowa, and three actors who were all veterans of Muckle/Ringel productions – Devon A.A. Norris, Patrick Tombs, and Rebecca Hoodwin – to create the following staged reading of Flash/Frozen on video, using Zoom technology.
CONTACT
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