Performed at

The Nuffield Theatre

on

23^rd to 27^th June 1981

Edward Albee

Edward Franklin Albee, born on March 12, 1928, in Washington, was adopted as an infant by Mr. and Mrs. Reed A. Albee of the Keith-Albee theatre chain. He attended Trinity College in Hartford but left after a year and a half to work intermittently at such odd jobs as writing for a radio station and working as a counterman in a luncheonette. In 1952 he travelled to Florence where he wrote a novel that has never been published. Returning to New York in 1955, he worked as a Western Union messenger until 1958, when he quit his job to write The Zoo Story, a one-act play.

Unable to interest Broadway in this two-character study, Albee sent the manuscript to a friend in Florence, David Diamond, who in turn forwarded it to Mrs. Stefani Hunzinger, the head of the drama department of a German publisher. Finally, in 1959, The Zoo Story, coupled with Samuel Beckett's Krapp’s Last Tape, was presented at Berlin's Schiller Theater Werkstatt. Early in 1960 the two plays had their New York premiere Off Broadway. His next play, the Death of Bessie Smith, was first presented in Berlin in 1960 and appeared Off Broadway with The American Dream in 1961.

In October 1962, Albee made a successful Broadway debut with his first three-act play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This vitriolic study of a decaying marriage established him as an important American playwright and won him an Antoinette Perry Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle award, and the Outer Circle Award. His later plays include The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1963) and Malcolm (wr. 1965), both adaptations of novels; Tiny Alice (1964); A Delicate Balance (1966), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize; and All Over (1971), a play about death.

The Cast (in order of appearance)
Martha	Avril Woodward
George	Ken Spencer
Honey	Jan Bradshaw
Nick	Stephen Gregory

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For the Maskers:
Stage Manager	Mike Johnson
Stage Assistants	Chris Ford, Chris Medak, William Aslett
Design	Christopher Hall
Lighting	Clive Weeks, Steve Hopley
Sound	Pete King, Judith Battersea
Properties	Sue Parkes, Sheila Clark, Prop Workshops Ltd
Wardrobe	Lillian Gunstone
Photography	Lance Nicholson
Business Management	Graham Buchanan, Brian Stansbridge
Director	Christopher Hall

The maskers would like to express their thanks to Mr. S. Rixon for assistance with this production