Tony Award-winning playwright Edward Albee has died after a short illness at his home in Montauk, N.Y. He was 88.
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Albee’s assistant said he died on Friday, September 16 at his home on Long Island near NY.
Widely regarded as America’s greatest playwright following the earlier deaths of Arthur Miller and August Wilson, Albee won three Pulitzer Prizes in a long career that took a caustic, often absurdist look at domestic life. One of Albee’s final plays, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? was performed on Broadway in 2002, and won another Tony. The Pulitzer board decided the play was not appropriate and a Pulitzer for drama was not awarded that year. That was made into a 1973 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield. Beyond his Tonys – including one for lifetime achievement – he won three Pulitzer Prizes.
He was the recipient of a number of awards, including the National Medal of the Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1966.
Edward Albee taught audiences to see society from a different perspective through his plays.
USA Today reports that before undergoing surgery several years ago, Albee wrote a note he wanted published at the time of his death.
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Albee’s longtime partner, sculptor Jonathan Thomas, died in 2005.
