American Playwrights Flashcards
1945-2005, born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh
Broadway theater named for him
Fences (Pulitzer prize and Tony), Troy Maxson
The Piano Lesson
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
Seven Guitars (about a blue’s musician)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
August Wilson
1915-2005, went to University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Daniel Day-Lewis’ father in law
Death of a Salesman (Pulitzer and Tony) his only Pulitzer 1949
First play: the man who had all the luck
The Crucible
The Misfits (with Marylin Monroe and Clark Cable)
After the Fall: autobiographical (about Marylin)
Arthur Miller
1888-1853 “long day” Died in Boston, realism
Pulitzer Prize: 1920, 1922, 1928, 1957 for drama 1936 for literature
Son of Actor
His daughter Oona married Charlie Chaplin
Irish-American Hall of Fame
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Iceman Cometh
Anna Christie
Eugene O’Neill
1911-1983 worked as a caretaker Summer! Glass Menagerie (Laura Wingfield and Amanda Wingfield) Streetcar Named Desire Orpheus Descending The Rose Tattoo Night of the Iguana Suddenly Last Summer
Tennessee Williams
1928-2016 1960s, controversial 3 Pulitzer Prizes: A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), Three Tall Women (1994) Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2006 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Martha and George The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? Zoo Story Lolita (1981) The Sandbox
Edward Albee
1930-1965, African American
1959, the youngest American playwright and the fifth woman to win Drama Critics Circle Award (A Raisin in the Sun) set in Chicago, Title comes from Langston Hughes poem “Harlem”
Died at 34
“Young, gifted and black”
Lorraine Hansberry
1947- Founding member of Atlantic Theatre Company Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross (dedicated to Harold Pinter) Daughter: Zosia American Buffalo Oleanna Sexual perversity in Chicago Duck Variations The Verdict Screenplay
David Mamet
