Biography
Rick McKay lives in New York City and is the award-winning Producer/Director/Writer/Cinematographer/Editor of the hit film Broadway: The Golden Age. For five seasons he was a segment producer on WNET13's City Arts, the most honored, locally produced show in television history, which won over 30 Emmy awards. Rick also produced the first story commissioned for the critically successful national PBS series Egg: The Arts Show, garnering another two Emmy nominations as well as helping to create the opening segment of two recent national Tony Awards broadcasts. Rick won four of the industry's prestigious Telly awards for his television work, has produced episodes for the immensely successful series Biography on the Arts and Entertainment network, and has produced for HBO and United Artists. Rick is also an on-air personality on national PBS television, hosting the incredibly successful pledge drives for "Broadway: The Golden Age" around the country and was recently seen co-hosting the non-cable premiere of Liza with a Z with Liza Minnelli on PBS.
There are two sequels of "Broadway" in production now: Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age, chronicling Broadway from 1959 to 1981 and Broadway: The Next Generation, which brings the story up to the present. Both are planned for theatrical release, followed by national television and DVD release, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Rick recently returned from New Zealand, working at famed director Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Productions, finishing his new film, "Fay Wray", which Jackson appears in, along with Naomi Watts, Gore Vidal, Leonard Maltin, McKay and many others. The film is half documentary, chronicling Wray's legendary, iconic career in film - and half road film, as Wray and McKay, despite the half-century difference in their ages, travel the globe, becoming fast friends, while McKay was beginning his career in film and Wray was entering her tenth and last decade, The film is due for release in late 2018.
Rick is also the sole owner and proprietor of Second Act Productions, the New York City production company that produced his Broadway trilogy as well as his other films. "Broadway: The Golden Age" has won over 15 film festival awards, is on 17 critics' Top Ten Films of the year lists and was a hit in theaters around the country. The SONY/BMG DVD is still a best seller and the film premiered on US television on national PBS in March 2006 as one of their most successful national pledge drives ever. Two sequels to the film are already in production with Robert Redford, Liza Minnelli, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, Sydney Poitier, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber and 100 other stars. The sequels will bring the story up to the present and both will open theatrically prior to international TV and DVD releases.
Rick also produced, directed and shot Elaine Stritch: At Liberty for PBS. Much of this footage was also used to make the HBO documentary of the same name, which won Elaine Stritch the 2004 Emmy award, and for which Rick is credited as producer and cinematographer. Rick's first solo film project was Birds of a Feather, a documentary of his adventures searching for drag queens for the legendary director Mike Nichols to help him make his hit film Birdcage. Rick is also an award-winning print journalist with numerous magazine and newspaper articles to his credit. His story Birds of a Feather won him San Francisco's Cable Car Award for "Outstanding Journalist" for feature reporting. Rick also has a successful career as an in-demand film and theatre lecturer around the world. A born raconteur, Rick appears with his films and tells behinds the scenes stories of their creation as well as of the history of film and theatre, while showing never-before-seen out-takes and rare footage from his films and from live performances.
Recently, Rick was awarded "Best Film: Greenwich Village Portrait" for his short film, Greenwich Village: A World Apart (2015) at the first annual Greenwich Village Film Festival, and again won the same category the next year for Greenwich Village: The Times They are a Changin' (2016).
Rick was honored at the Sundance Film Festival by PBS and inducted into the PBS Producers Academy, as one of their "best and brightest documentary producer/directors" for his continuing independent film and television work. Rick has also been honored with the "Special Contribution to Film" Award from Stonybrook University Film Festival and the "Limelight Award" from Ojai Film Festival. Recently Rick was also honored with the "New England Theatre Conference Special Contribution to Theatre Award" and the Theatre Museum of New York City's "Award of Excellence for Theatre History Preservation." Rick is also a Doctor of Fine Arts, after being honored at Five Towns College in New York where McKay, Michael Feinstein and Sheldon Harnick were all presented with degrees at a special event celebrating their work.
His wealth of experience in film, television, live entertainment, and journalism has made Rick McKay one of the most prolific and well-rounded independent producer/director/writers working in the industry today.
