Edward Albee Biography

Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 - September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) and A Delicate Balance (1966). Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play. His works are often considered as well-crafted, frank 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 Samuel Beckett, Eugne Ionesco and Jean Genet. His middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing, marriage, and sexual relationships. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricality and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Later in his life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002).

Early life

Edward Albee was born in 1928. He was placed for adoption two weeks later and taken to Larchmont in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters. His adoptive mother, Reed's third wife, Frances (Cotter), was a socialite.

Albee attended the Clinton High School, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, from which he was expelled. He then was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he was dismissed in less than a year. He enrolled at The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, graduating in 1946. His formal education continued at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel.

Albee left home for good when he was in his late teens. In a later interview, he said: "I never felt comfortable with the adoptive parents. I don't think they knew how to be parents. I probably didn't know how to be a son, either." More recently, he told interviewer Charlie Rose that he was "thrown out" because his parents wanted him to become a "corporate thug" and did not approve of his aspirations to become a writer.

Career

Albee moved into New York's Greenwich Village, where he supported himself with odd jobs while learning to write plays. His first play, The Zoo Story, was first staged in Berlin. The less than diligent student later dedicated much of his time to promoting American university theatre. Most recently, he served as distinguished professor at the University of Houston, where he taught an exclusive playwriting course. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Samuel French, Inc..

A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee received three Pulitzer Prizes for drama"?for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975) and Three Tall Women (1994). His play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was selected for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize by the award's drama jury, but was overruled by the advisory committee, which elected not to give a drama award at all. The two members of the jury, John Mason Brown and John Gassner, subsequently resigned in protest.

Albee was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1972. In 1985, Albee was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. In 1999, Albee received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist.

He received 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). In 2009 Albee received honorary degree a.k.a. "Doctor Honoris Causa" by the Bulgarian National Academy of Theater and Film Arts (NATFA), a member of the Global Alliance of Theater Schools.

In 2008, in celebration of Albee's eightieth birthday, a number of his plays were mounted in distinguished Off Broadway venues, including the historic Cherry Lane Theatre where the playwright directed two of his early one-acts, The American Dream and The Sandbox.

Philanthropy

Albee established the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc. in 1967, after proceeds from his play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? proved abundant. The foundation maintains the William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center (better known as "The Barn") in Montauk, New York, as a residence for writers and visual artists. The foundation's mission is to serve writers and visual artists from all walks of life, by providing time and space in which to work without disturbance. The only criteria for selection are talent and need, and the foundation invites any and all artists to apply.

• Edward Albee: Founder and President
• Rex Lau: Co-Caretaker of the Barn
• Diane Mayo: Co-Caretaker of The Barn
• Jakob Holder: Executive Director

Personal life and death

Albee was openly gay and stated that he first knew he was gay at age 12 and a half. He insisted, however, that he did not want to be known as a "gay writer", stating in his acceptance speech for the 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation's Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement: "A writer who happens to be gay or lesbian must be able to transcend self. I am not a gay writer. I am a writer who happens to be gay." His longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor, died on May 2, 2005, from bladder cancer. They had been partners from 1971 until Thomas's death. Albee also had a relationship of several years with playwright Terrence McNally during the 1950s.

Albee died at his Montauk, New York, home on September 16, 2016, aged 88.

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 1960: Drama Desk Award Vernon Rice Award: The Zoo Story
• 1963: Tony Award for Best Play: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• 1967: Pulitzer Prize for Drama: A Delicate Balance
• 1975: Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Seascape
• 1994: Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Three Tall Women
• 1995: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates
• 1996: National Medal of Arts
• 2002: Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
• 2002: Tony Award for Best Play: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
• 2005: Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 2005: Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award
• 2008: Drama Desk Award Special Award
• 2011: Edward MacDowell Medal for Lifetime Achievement
• 2011: Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement, Lambda Literary Foundation
• 2015: America Award in Literature

Nominations

• 1964: Tony Award for Best Play: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
• 1965: Tony Award for Best Author of a Play: Tiny Alice
• 1965: Tony Award for Best Play: Tiny Alice
• 1967: Tony Award for Best Play: A Delicate Balance
• 1975: Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play: Seascape
• 1975: Tony Award for Best Play: Seascape
• 1976: Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Play: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• 1994: Drama Desk Award Outstanding Play: Three Tall Women
• 2001: Pulitzer Prize for Drama: The Play About the Baby
• 2003: Pulitzer Prize for Drama: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
• 2005: Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Pulitzer Prize committee for the Best Play in 1963 recommended Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but the Pulitzer board, which has sole discretion in awarding the prize, rejected the recommendation, due to the play's perceived vulgarity, and no award was given that year.

Plays

Essays

• Stretching My Mind: Essays 1960-2005 (Avalon Publishing, 2005)

Discography

• Mark Richman & William Daniels in The Zoo Story by Edward Albee"?Directed by Arthur Luce Klein (LP, Spoken Arts SA 808)
• Original Broadway Cast Recording "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (Arthur Hill, Uta Hagen, George Grizzard, Melinda Dillon) Columbia LP DOS 687, 1963, Reissued Sony Masterworks Broadway as a CD-R, ASIN: B00J3CTVXI, March 2014.
• Original Soundtrack Recording "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal, Sandy Dennis) Warner Bros. 2B-1657, Released 1966, 2-LP release of dialogue in mono only
• Original Soundtrack Recording "A Delicate Balance" (Katherine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Joseph Cotten, Betsy Blair, Lee Remick, Kate Reid) Caedmon 1973