This is the seventeenth  in a series
highlighting the best gay and lesbian authors from the 20th century
(with a few before and after that period) who have recorded in fiction,
and nonfiction, the history of gay people telling what life is, and was,
during an important time of history.

It's
hard for me to believe that 48 years ago, during the second week of
October in 1962, I was sitting in the next to last row on the right
aisle of the Billy Rose theatre completely drained of emotion after
watching  a new play in previews called, "Who's Afraid Of Virginia
Woolf?" To this day I consider it tied with "A Streetcar Named Desire"
as the best play(s) I have ever seen.

Two
years later, same theatre, only I was sitting in the 10th row center
orchestra and it was a week before Christmas, I watched another preview
of another Albee play called, "Tiny Alice". It was a strange play with
an outstanding cast and a set that is still clear in my mind today which
reflected the room the play was being held  in a minature scale of the
house the room is in.

I
did walk out of an Albee play, "The Man Who Had Three Arms", when it
was presented at the Miami Arts Festival in 1980 before heading to
Broadway but he has more than made up for that with the award winning
and financial successful plays he has written in the past two decades
and all the years since the late 1950s. There is no doubt he belongs up
there with Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neil as oen of America's
finest playwrights!

Edward Franklin Albee III (pronounced /ˈɔːlbiː/ AWL-bee;
born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright 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 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).

Quotes

• "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."


• "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."


• "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."

Edward Albee at the Miami Book Fair International of
1987

Honors

[ Plays