Albee receives Meadows arts award
Award winning American dramatist and respected playwright EdwardAlbee received the 2003 Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence inthe Arts on Saturday at a private ceremony.
Albee, “the only great playwright we’ve ever had inAmerica,” as Tennessee Williams put it, is the 18th recipientof the award.
Prior to his acceptance of the award, Albee spent three days onthe SMU campus, discussing his career and the future oftheatre.
He held three separate sessions on design, acting and directingand joined theatre students for an informal lunch followed by aquestion-and-answer session.
The award recipient participated in two public events oncampus.
The first, “A Conversation with Edward Albee,” tookplace Wednesday in the Bob Hope Theatre.
Mel Gussow, a cultural writer and former theatre critic for TheNew York Times, opened the forum that discussed Albee’scareer as a playwright.
The second event, also held in the Bob Hope Theatre, was titled”Generations of Playwrights: The Albee Legacy.”
In addition to Albee, the panel included Gussow, author ofEdward Albee: A Singular Journey, and Will Eno, playwright andFellow of the Edward F. Albee Foundation and the J.S. GuggenheimFoundation.
Born on March 12, 1928, Albee was adopted as an infant by ReedAlbee, whose father was a powerful American Vaudevilleproducer.
Thirty-one years later, Edward Albee hit it big with his 1959play, “The Zoo Story,” and was hailed as the leader ofa new theatrical movement.
He was later labeled as the successor to Arthur Miller,Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill.
Throughout the following years, Albee strengthened hisreputation with a series of original plays and absurdist dramas,including his most popular; “Who’s Afraid of VirginiaWoolf?”
Albee received the Tony Award and New York Drama Critics CircleAward for the play.
After the play’s nomination for a Pulitzer was unanimouslydenied, two members of the Pulitzer Prize committee resigned.
Albee continued to write plays throughout the 1960s and‘70s. “A Delicate Balance” garnered him his firstPulitzer. For “Seascape,” Albee was awarded a secondPulitzer Prize, but throughout the ‘80s, Albee’splaywriting career failed to produce as substantial commercialhit.
In 1994, Albee experienced a much-awaited success with his play”Three Tall Women,” earning him his third PulitzerPrize and first commercial hit in over a decade.
“Three Tall Women” also won the New York DramaCritics Circle Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award.
Other recipients of the Meadows award include “60Minutes” executive producer and journalist Don Hewitt.
Architect-engineer and sculptor Santiago Calatrava whose work,”The Wave,” is exhibited on campus is another recipientof the award, which was also given to actress Angela Lansbury andplaywright Arthur Miller, author of such classic American plays as”The Crucible” and “Death of aSalesman.”
The annual award, which was established in 1978 to recognizeachievement in creative and performing arts, gives a cash prize of$50,000 made possible by The Meadows Foundation.
