Mark Medoff's plays have been gaining attention at a steady rate since his first commercial success, the 1974 Off-Broadway production of The Wager. A faculty member at the New Mexico State University, he has, in the past few years, gained much critical and public respect as a playwright. The Wager and When You Comin Back, Red Ryder" (1973) had impressive runs, and Children of a Lesser God (1979), which premiered in Los Angeles, has been successfully transferred to Broadway.

Mark Howard Medoff was born in Mount Carmel, Illinois, to Lawrence R. Medoff, a physician and Thelma Butt Medoff, a psychologist. He attended the University of Miami, where he received his B.A. in 1962. Then, after a two-year pause in his formal education, during which he was supervisor of publications and assistant director of admissions for the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute in Washington, D.C., he worked toward his master's degree in...