Lanford Wilson

Lanford Wilson
Wilson presenting at the 2006 New York Innovative Theatre Awards
Born 13 April 1937 (1937-04-13) (age 72) Lebanon, Missouri, USA Nationality United States Alma mater San Diego State University University of Chicago
Information
Debut works	Home Free! (1964) Balm in Gilead (1965)
Notable work(s)	The Hot l Baltimore (1973)
Magnum opus	Talley's Folly (1979) Fifth of July (1978)
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1980)

Lanford Wilson (born 13 April 1937) is an American playwright, considered one of the founders of the Off-off Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Biography

Early years

Wilson was born to Ralph Eugene and Violetta Tate Wilson in Lebanon, Missouri. After the divorce of his parents, he moved with his mother to Springfield, until she remarried and when he was eleven and they moved again to Ozark. There he attended high school, and upon graduation, he moved San Diego, California to live with his father, where he briefly attended San Diego State University. He then lived for six years in Chicago, where he began to explore play writing at the University of Chicago.

Career

Wilson began his active career as a playwright in the early 1960s at the Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village, writing one-act plays such as Ludlow Fair, Home Free!, and The Madness of Lady Bright. The Madness of Lady Bright premiered at the Caffe Cino in May 1964 and was the venue's first significant hit. The play featured actor Neil Flanagan in the title role as Leslie Bright, a neurotic aging queen (gay slang). The Madness of Lady Bright is considered a landmark play in the representation of male homosexuality. It was the longest running play ever to appear at the Caffe Cino, where it was performed over two hundred times. Wilson was subsequently invited to present his work off-Broadway, including his plays Balm in Gilead and The Rimers of Eldritch produced at Cafe LaMama.

Founded member of New York State Summer School for the Arts.

Wilson was a founding member of the Circle Repertory Company in 1969. Many of his plays were first presented there, directed by his long-standing collaborative partner, Marshall W. Mason. The Circle Rep's production of Wilson's The Hot l Baltimore won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Obie Award, and in 1979 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Talley's Folly.

Wilson's style and approach has evolved over the years, sometimes resulting in drastically different effects. Some of his plays are extremely radical and experimental in nature while others clearly have a more mainstream, if still creative, sensibility. His first full length play, Balm in Gilead, is perhaps his most radical, yet it also remains one of his most popular. The play had a memorable off-Broadway revival in the 1980s, directed by John Malkovich, a co-production of Circle Rep and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

In addition to writing plays, Wilson has written the texts for several twentieth century operas, including at least two collaborations with composer Lee Hoiby: Summer and Smoke (1971) and This is the Rill Speaking (1992) (based on his own play).

Bibliography

References

• Don S. Lawson (17 October 2007). "Wilson, Lanford (b. 1937)". glbtq Encyclopedia. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/wilson_l.html. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 
• "Biography of American dramatist Lanford Wilson". Moonstruck Drama Bookstore. 2008. http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc65.html. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 

External links

• Lanford Wilson at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lanford Wilson at the Internet Movie Database
• Lanford Wilson at the Internet off-Broadway Database