His various plays include:
Shearwater (
American Place Theater) (1974)
Heat (
The Public Theater) (1974) And
Domino Courts and Comanche Cafe (1976) at the
American Place Theatre which won a Village Voice
Obie Award (1977).
Big River (1985), his adaptation of
Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn, written in collaboration with composer
Roger Miller, won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical when it opened on
Broadway. It has proven very popular in stock and amateur theatrical productions. Hauptman joined the project after being approached by former
Yale classmate
Rocco Landesman. Hauptman is also a writer of fiction. His first published story, ''Good Rockin' Tonight'', about an
Elvis impersonator, made The Best American Short Stories Collection of 1982. Later, Hauptman wrote a screenplay of this story for
20th Century Fox, going on to write several other screenplays for the studios, including
Amblin Entertainment and
Merchant Ivory Productions. Bantam published his collection of short stories, including ''Good Rockin' Tonight and Other Stories
(1988). Larry McMurtry gave him this quote: "William Hauptman, for my money, is the most promising young fiction writers to come out of the Southwest in a long time." This collection won the Jesse Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction given by the Texas Institute of Letters in 1989, along with an award for Best Short Story, which was given to Moon Walking''. In 1992, Bantam published his novel about tornado-chasers
The Storm Season, which was later reprinted by the University of Texas Press. This novel was praised by
Carolyn See in the
Los Angeles Times, who said, "Storm Season is about family, the working class, the crimes human beings have committed against the land, and the hypnotic, redemptive quality of disaster--why human beings enjoy being scared out of their wits. It's spooky, beautiful, bizarre." His most recent novel, about his experiences in the 60s, is called
Journey to the West (2017) which has been described by James Magnuson, director of the Michener Center at the University of Texas as "by turns hilarious, sweet, and harrowing...It deserves to be a classic."
Big River was also produced by the Deaf West Company in both Los Angeles (2002) and New York, (2003) at the
American Airlines Theater, and received a
Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Big River was also produced as part of the Encores Series at City Center Theater in New York in 2017. Program Notes: From Playbill of Encores Production of Big River, 2016: "It was a time when everybody played by the rules of Satchel Paige: Don't worry about the things you can't do nothing about, dance like nobody's watching, and love like you can't get hurt." He has also contributed articles to
The Atlantic Monthly, Texas Monthly, and
The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Teaching Experience—Yale School of Drama; the Michener Center for writers at the University of Texas in Austin; and
Brooklyn College. •
Big River •
Heat •
Comanche Cafe •
Domino Courts •
Gillette • ''Good Rockin' Tonight and Other Stories'' •
The Storm Season • Journey to the West == Awards ==