Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee IIIis an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story, The Sandbox, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. His works are often considered as well-crafted, realistic 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, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth12 March 1928
CountryUnited States of America
that my plays were 'necessary.' I will go one step further and say that Arthur's plays are 'essential.'
I suppose if you simplify things, it's going to make it easier to understand.
The only time I'll get good reviews is if I kill myself.
The final evaluation of a play has nothing to do with immediate audience or critical response.
I think there are perhaps four playwrights of the 20th century that we could not have done without: Chekhov, Pirandello, Brecht and Beckett. If you've got those four, you've got the century covered.
Well, when I was six years old I decided, not that I was going to be, but with my usual modesty, that I was a writer.
The playwright, along with any writer, composer, painter in this society, has got to have a terribly private view of his own value, of his own work. He's got to listen to his own voice primarily. He's got to watch out for fads, for what might be called the critical aesthetics.
It's hard to explain, or even remember, it now. All four of them were down there underwater, but it's too complicated to go into. I thought it was better just to eliminate it. If it had been necessary, I wouldn't have been able to cut it so easily. It still exists. It's probably in The Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library, but it can't be performed.
Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
The most profound indication of social malignancy ... no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke.
I am a Doctor. A.B... M.A... PH.D... ABMAPHID! Abmaphid has been variously described as a wasting disease of the frontal lobes, and as a wonder drug. It is actually both.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.