EDWARD ALBEE
Edward Albee
Born March 12, 1928 (age 79)
Washington D.C.
Occupation dramatist
Nationality American
Writing period 1958 - present
Edward Franklin Albee III (born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright known
for works including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox
and The American Dream. His works are considered well-crafted and often
unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a
mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in
works by European playwrights such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugène
Ionesco. Younger American playwrights, such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel,
credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to
reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee's dedication to
continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The
Goat or Who is Sylvia (2000) also routinely marks him as distinct from other
American playwrights of his era.
Edward Albee was born in Washington, D.C. and was adopted two weeks later and
taken to Westchester County, New York. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee,
himself the son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several
theatres, where Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child. His
adoptive mother was Reed's third wife, Frances. Albee left home when he was in
his late teens, later saying in an interview, "They weren't very good at being
parents, and I wasn't very good at being a son." He attended the Rye Country Day
School, then the Lawrenceville School, where he was expelled. He attended Valley
Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania in 1943 and graduated in 1945 at
the age of 17. He studied at Choate Rosemary Hall and graduated in 1946, then
attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut for a year and a half before
being expelled for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel in
1947. Perhaps ironically, the less than diligent student later dedicated much of
his time to promoting American university theatre, frequently speaking at
campuses and serving as a distinguished professor at the University of Houston
from 1989 to 2003.
A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee has received three Pulitzer
Prizes for drama — for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), Three Tall
Women (1994); a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005); the Gold
Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1980);
as well as the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts (both in
1996).
Albee is the President of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., which maintains
the William Flanagan Creative Persons Center, a writers and artists colony in
Montauk, New York. Albee's longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor, died
on May 2, 2005, the result of a two year-long battle with bladder cancer.
In 2008, in celebration of his eightieth birthday, numerous Albee plays are
being mounted in distinguished Off Broadway venues, including the historic
Cherry Lane Theatre, where the playwright himself is directing two of his one-acts,
The American Dream and The Sandbox, which were produced at the theater in 1961
and 1962, respectively.
Edward Albee
Born March 12, 1928 (age 79)
Washington D.C.
Occupation dramatist
Nationality American
Writing period 1958 - present
Edward Franklin Albee III (born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright known
for works including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox
and The American Dream. His works are considered well-crafted and often
unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a
mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in
works by European playwrights such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugène
Ionesco. Younger American playwrights, such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel,
credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to
reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee's dedication to
continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The
Goat or Who is Sylvia (2000) also routinely marks him as distinct from other
American playwrights of his era.
Edward Albee was born in Washington, D.C. and was adopted two weeks later and
taken to Westchester County, New York. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee,
himself the son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several
theatres, where Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child. His
adoptive mother was Reed's third wife, Frances. Albee left home when he was in
his late teens, later saying in an interview, "They weren't very good at being
parents, and I wasn't very good at being a son." He attended the Rye Country Day
School, then the Lawrenceville School, where he was expelled. He attended Valley
Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania in 1943 and graduated in 1945 at
the age of 17. He studied at Choate Rosemary Hall and graduated in 1946, then
attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut for a year and a half before
being expelled for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel in
1947. Perhaps ironically, the less than diligent student later dedicated much of
his time to promoting American university theatre, frequently speaking at
campuses and serving as a distinguished professor at the University of Houston
from 1989 to 2003.
A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee has received three Pulitzer
Prizes for drama — for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), Three Tall
Women (1994); a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005); the Gold
Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1980);
as well as the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts (both in
1996).
Albee is the President of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., which maintains
the William Flanagan Creative Persons Center, a writers and artists colony in
Montauk, New York. Albee's longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor, died
on May 2, 2005, the result of a two year-long battle with bladder cancer.
In 2008, in celebration of his eightieth birthday, numerous Albee plays are
being mounted in distinguished Off Broadway venues, including the historic
Cherry Lane Theatre, where the playwright himself is directing two of his one-acts,
The American Dream and The Sandbox, which were produced at the theater in 1961
and 1962, respectively.