"The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not." -- Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright who is best known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance and Three Tall Women. 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 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 or, Who Is Sylvia? (2002).
"A play is fiction - and fiction is fact distilled into truth.""American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.""Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.""I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.""I swear, if you existed I'd divorce you.""I'm not suggesting that the play is without fault; all of my plays are imperfect, I'm rather happy to say-it leaves me something to do.""If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.""One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.""Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.""Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.""Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.""The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it.""What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.""You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are.""Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality."
According to Magill's Survey of American Literature (2007), Edward Albee was born somewhere in Virginia (the popular belief is that he was born in Washington, D.C.). He was adopted two weeks later and taken to Larchmont, New York in Westchester County, where he grew up. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters. Here the young Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child. His adoptive mother, Reed's third wife, Frances tried to raise Albee to fit into their social circles.
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. In response to his expulsion, Albee's play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is believed to be based on his experiences at Trinity College.
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 gangsta and didn't approve of his aspirations to become a writer.
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. He currently is a distinguished professor at the University of Houston, where he teaches an exclusive playwriting course. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Samuel French, Inc..
Honors
A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee has received three Pulitzer Prizes for drama...for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), and 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 Memorial 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, from bladder cancer.
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. The playwright directed two of his one-acts, The American Dream and The Sandbox there. These were first produced at the theater in 1961 and 1962, respectively.
"What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?"
"A usefully lived life is probably going to be, ultimately, more satisfying." Edward Albee Interview - page 6 / 6 - Academy of Achievement
"Writing should be useful. If it can't instruct people a little bit more about the responsibilities of consciousness there's no point in doing it."
"If you're willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly."
"That's what happens in plays, yes? The shit hits the fan."
"Creativity is magic. Don't examine it too closely." Edward Albee - Me, Myself & I - Peter and Jerry - Theater - New York Times
"Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly."
"All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don't want to art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don't think art should be escapist. That's a waste of time."
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
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
2008 Drama Desk Award Special Award
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, who have sole discretion in awarding the prize, rejected the recommendation, due to the play's perceived vulgarity, and no award was given that year.
