“Edward Albee, one of the most innovative playwrights of his generation, whose raw, unnerving dramas — and even the few comedies — scraped at the veneer of American success and happiness, died Sept. 16 at his home in Montauk, Long Island. He was 88.” Washington Post obituary

“He introduced himself suddenly and with a bang, in 1959, when his first produced play, “The Zoo Story,” opened in Berlin on a double bill with Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape.” A two-handed one-act that unfolds in real time, “The Zoo Story” zeroed in on the existential terror at the heart of Eisenhower-era complacency, presenting the increasingly menacing intrusion of a probing, querying stranger on a man reading on a Central Park bench.” – New York Times obituary

Lynn Nottage: I will miss his wit, irreverence & wisdom. He enlivened the theatre landscape.

Edward Albee is dead. I saw his darkness, which was vast and intimidating. I saw his kindness too, quiet and unassuming. His kindness won.

— John Patrick Shanley (@JohnJpshanley) September 17, 2016

Seeing Three Tall Women (WAY too young) made me fall in love w theater. Edward Albee is a legend, genius, treasure. #ZooStory #VirginiaWoolf

— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) September 17, 2016

Years ago directing in Hartford I brought my cat.She hid under the bed. Edward on hands and knees talked to her. She came out to say hi. RIP

— Pam MacKinnon (@pammackinnon) September 17, 2016

#EdwardAlbee is gone, last of the 20th Century Titans, but George & Martha, Agnes & Tobias, and all the others live on. Rest.

— John Lithgow (@JohnLithgow) September 17, 2016

Edward Albee’s body of work
sits on a park bench like Jerry in The Zoo Story,
waiting for you to engage with it and never be the same. #RIP

— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) September 17, 2016

The last production of an Albee play in New York was in May: The Sandbox

The Death of Bessie Smith, rarely performed, in a production in Brooklyn’s Interfaith Hospital in 2014. (Can Edward Albee save Brooklyn’s Interfaith hospital?)

A Delicate Balance, on Broadway in 2014

The 2012 Broadway production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

 

 

The plays of Edward Albee:

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? (1961–1962)
The Ballad of the Sad Café (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 (adapted from the novel by Truman Capote) (1966)
Everything in the Garden (1967)
Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1968)
All Over (1971)
Seascape (1974)
Listening (1975)
Counting the Ways (1976)
The Lady from Dubuque (1977–1979)
Lolita (adapted from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov) (1981)
The Man Who Had Three Arms (1981)
Finding the Sun (1983)
Marriage Play (1986–1987)
Three Tall Women (1990–1991)
The Lorca Play (1992)
Fragments (1993)
The Play About the Baby (1996)
Occupant (2001)
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002)
Knock! Knock! Who’s There!? (2003)
Peter & Jerry, retitled in 2009 to At Home at the Zoo (Act One: Homelife. Act Two: The Zoo Story) (2004)
Me Myself and I (2007)

 

Q and A with Edward Albee, great playwright, difficult interview subject