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About Charles Mee – CLICK HERE
Edward Albee
"All my plays are about people missing the boat, closing down too young, coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done, as opposed to things done." - Edward Albee
Over the course of his four decade career Edward Albee has explored the dark underside of the American psyche in a variety of styles that range from absurdist to brutally realistic.
Edward Albee was born on March 12, 1928 in Washington DC and raised in Larchmont, New York. At the age of twenty he left Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City where he held a series of odd jobs for the next ten years, including office boy, record salesman, and messenger for Western Union, all the while pursuing a career in writing.
As a gift to himself on his thirtieth birthday Mr. Albee wrote The Zoo Story, which opened in 1959 in Berlin and heralded a new era of experimentalism in American drama. The play went on to a successful run Off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse alongside Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, and won Albee an OBIE Award.
Mr. Albee's next plays included The Death of Bessie Smith, Fam and Yam, The Sandbox, and The American Dream. In 1962 he wrote his first full-length play, the ground-breaking Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which received Tony Awards for Best Play, Production, Director, Actor, and Actress. Albee used the earnings from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to form The Playwrights Unit, a developmental workshop for young playwrights (among whom included Signature Playwrights-in-Residence John Guare, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, and Lanford Wilson). In 1967 Albee received the Pulitzer Prize for A Delicate Balance, a family drama which delved into middle class American anxiety. He received his second Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for Seascape, a surreal social drama that examines humanity through the eyes of a pair of talking sea lizards.
Mr. Albee's other plays include The Ballad of the Sad Café, adapted from the Carson McCullers novel; Tiny Alice, a metaphysical dream play; Everything in the Garden; Box; Quotations from Mao Tse-Tung; All Over; Counting the Ways; Listening; The Lady from Dubuque; Lolita, adapted from the Vladimir Nabokov novel; The Man Who Had Three Arms; Marriage Play; and The Lorca Play.
After a ten-year absence from the New York stage Mr. Albee returned for the 1993-1994 Signature Season, which presented the New York premieres of Marriage Play, Counting the Ways and Listening, Sand: Box, The Sandbox, and Finding the Sun, and Fragments. Mr. Albee directed all of the plays with the exceptions of Marriage Play and Listening. During the 1993-1994 season he received his third Pulitzer Prize for Three Tall Women, which was staged at The Vineyard Theatre, and was honored with an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement in Playwriting. Mr. Albee returned to Signature for the 2001-2002 Tenth Anniversary All-Premiere Celebration Part Two for the presentation of Edward Albee's Occupant, his exploration of enigmatic American sculptor Louise Nevelson. After premiering in London in 1998, that season The Play About the Baby opened in New York and later at the Alley Theatre in Houston.
In 2002 The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia? received the Tony Award for Best Play. Home Life, Mr. Albee's companion play to The Zoo Story opened at Hartford Stage in Connecticut in 2004 alongside The Zoo Story. In 2005 a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin opened on Broadway and Albee received a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. The production later opened in London's West End followed by a U.S. national tour. Lincoln Center revived Seascape on Broadway in 2005 and in 2007 The Lady from Dubuque opened in London's West End starring Dame Maggie Smith.
Currently Mr. Albee serves on the Board of Trustees of Signature Theatre Company. Signature is thrilled to welcome him back as we present Edward Albee's Occupant, our latest offering of the Legacy Program and the final presentation of the 2007-2008 Season. Please look for more information on Mr. Albee and Edward Albee's Occupant online and at the theatre.
Edward Albee's Occupant was first produced by Signature as part of our 2000/01 Season. Click here to read an article from that time about the production.
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