Name John Belluso Role Playwright | ||
 | ||
Books A Nervous Smile, Henry Flamethrowa, The Rules of Charity | ||
John Belluso (November 13, 1969 – February 10, 2006) was an American playwright best known for his works focusing on the lives of disabled people.
He also directed a writing program for disabled people.
Born in Warwick, Rhode Island, he began using a wheelchair at the age of 13 due to a bone disease, Camurati-Engelmann syndrome. He completed both Bachelors and Masters degrees at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program.
In 2001, he wrote The Body of Bourne, based on the life of Randolph Bourne, a World War I pacifist and author. It was produced in Los Angeles by the Mark Taper Forum. He also directed the Forum's Other Voices program for writers with a disability. After that, he wrote Pyretown, which criticises America's managed care health system through a romance between a divorced mother and a young, wheelchair-using man.
A stream of other works also emerged, including:
Belluso joined the crew of the HBO western drama Deadwood as a writer for the first season in 2004, writing "The Trial of Jack McCall".
He died in February 2006 in New York City, where he was writing a play for New York's Public Theater about a disabled veteran returning from Iraq. In March, 2008 was directed by his friend Lisa Peterson as an unfinished work in the Public's "Lab" series.
Season 1, episode 17, of Ghost Whisperer is dedicated to his memory.