Edward Albee

Edward Franklin Albee III (March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright best known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance and Seascape. His works are considered well-crafted, 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 continues to experiment in new works, such as The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia? (2002).

Easton Press Edward Albee books

  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - signed modern classic - 1999 

Franklin Library Edward Albee books

  Plays: A Delicate Balance - Pulitzer Prize classics - 1986

 

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Who is Edward Albee?

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 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).

 

Plays

The Zoo Story (1958)
The Death of Bessie Smith (1959)
The Sandbox (1959)
Fam and Yam (1959)
The American Dream (1960)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961-62)
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1963) (adapted from the novella by Carson McCullers)
Tiny Alice (1964)
Malcolm (1965) (adapted from the novel by James Purdy)
A Delicate Balance (1966)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966)
Everything in the Garden (1967)
Box (1968)
All Over (1971)
Seascape (1974)
Listening (1975)
Counting the Ways (1976)
The Lady From Dubuque (1977-79)
Lolita (adapted from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov) (1981)
The Man Who Had Three Arms (1981)
Finding the Sun (1982)
Marriage Play (1986-87)
Three Tall Women (1990-91)
The Lorca Play (1992)
Fragments (1993)
The Play About the Baby (1996)
The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (2002)
Occupant (2001)
Knock! Knock! Who's There!? (2003)
Peter & Jerry (Act One: Homelife. Act Two: The Zoo Story) (2004)
Me, Myself and I (2007)

  

Edward Albee quotes

"Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly."

"I'm not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running."

"The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter."

"You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?"

"If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?"

"You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?

 

Source and additional information: Edward Albee