Richard Pacheco is an award winning playwright, poet, artist, journalist, filmmaker, actor and educator. His play “Happily Ever After” was given an honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest script competition. He is a SAG-AFTRA actor, elected to the local board and also performs onstage. He was a finalist in the grant competition in playwrighting for the Massachusetts Artists Foundation (1976) and recipient of an ARTA (American Regional Theatre Award) best new play award in 1986.
His plays have received staged readings and performances at Playwright’s Platform, Culture Park and other venues. He was mentored in poetry by Daisy Alden and George W. Hayden, two Pulitzer Prize nominees. He was a finalist in the Boston Theatre Marathon several times.. He has acted in over 30 plays and acts in film and television as well. He holds a BFA in painting and an MFA in art education/printmaking from U. Mass. Dartmouth.
He wrote for the New Bedford Standard-Times for 23 years as arts writer of features and critiques on dance, drama, music an the visual arts. He was the only freelance writer to write investigative journalism for them in their entire history since 1850.
The city of New Bedford recognized his contributions to the arts with a special award.
He taught for 33 years in the New Bedford public school system, teaching everything from general art, to pottery, crafts, printmaking, sculpture, photography, computer graphics and web design. He designed one of the first computer graphics courses at a high school In the nation. He was named a Horace Mann educator by the state of Massachusetts. He won the Key Club Award for Excellence in Education. He was twice nominated for the Disney All American Teacher Award. When he retired in 2002, he received a special recognition for the Massachusetts House of Representatives for his contributions to the arts and education. Then Gov, Jane Swift also awarded him a certificate o special recognition for his teaching.
As an artist he had two one person exhibits at the Boston Visual Artists Union Wall in Boston City Hall. He was represented by the Charles Street Gallery Boston. He had a retrospective with artist Peter London at the Arts Center New Bedford. He also participated in a three person show at the Lynne Kottler Gallery New York City. He worked as an artist consultant with Cong. Robert Drinan on the 1976 Copyright law revisions.
Currently he writes reviews for Theatre Mirror and his own blog: livetheatemass-ri.blogspot.com. He lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He contuse to write plays, both one act and full length. He is also working on fiction and more poetry. He has published two volumes of poetry, “Perspectives” and “Geography”, both available in kindle and paperback versions. "Geography" was nominated for a 2015 Pultizer Prize in poetry.
He was a single parent of three children, Joel, Jennifer, and Jonathan. He has been divorced since 1981. He has one grandchild, Sean Pacheco.
