Lanford Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright, Dies at 73

[villager]

Source: NY Times

Lanford Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright, Dies at 73

Lanford Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose work — earthy, realist, greatly admired, widely performed — centered on the sheer ordinariness of marginality, died on Thursday in Wayne, N.J. He was 73 and lived in Sag Harbor, on Long Island. The cause was complications of pneumonia, said Marshall W. Mason, a director and longtime collaborator who is widely considered the foremost interpreter of Mr. Wilson’s work.

One of the most distinguished American playwrights of the late 20th century, Mr. Wilson was considered instrumental in drawing attention to Off Off Broadway, where his first works were staged in the mid-1960s. He was also among the first playwrights to move from that milieu to renown on wider stages, ascending to Off Broadway, and then to Broadway with no Off’s whatsoever, within a decade of his arrival in New York.

His work has also long been a staple of regional theaters throughout the United States.

Mr. Wilson won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for drama for “Talley’s Folly,” which played 286 performances on Broadway that year. A one-act, two-character comedy set in his hometown, Lebanon, Mo., the play chronicled the romantic fortunes of a Jewish man (played by Judd Hirsch) and a Protestant woman (Trish Hawkins) in 1944.

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/theater/lanford-wilson-pulitzer-prize-winning-playwright-dies-at-73.html?src=me

[aquart]

1. Lanford? He and Marshall were the heart and soul of Circle Rep.

You know how to tell a good play? Usher it for a year watching night after night and see if you still find the charm in it. Hot L Baltimore never lost its charm.

[Lucinda]

2. I've spent many an hour involved with his work in my life so far

It has been time well spent.

[villager]

3. Love your sig line, btw...

:thumbsup:

[Lucinda]

4. Thanks. Me too.

Great quote from a Dustin Hoffman character.