While head of the National Playwrights Conference, he helped cultivate many of the most famous theater writers of the 20th century.

His father, a Jamaican carpenter turned auto-industry worker, died of an infection when Richards was nine years old.

He later went on to study law at Wayne State University where instead he found his way in theatrical arts after a brief break during World War II while serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

[3] As head of the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, he helped develop the careers of August Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, Lee Blessing and David Henry Hwang.

[6] Richards also taught Moscow Art Theatre acting technique under Paul Mann at the Actor's Workshop in New York alongside Morris Carnovsky.