(Via Miguel Mendiola, Sam Rudy Media Relations)
The Edward F. Albee Foundation, started by its eponym, playwright Edward Albee, in 1967, regrets to announce the death of Mr. Albee on Friday, September 16, 2016. Mr. Albee passed away peacefully following a brief illness at his home in Montauk, Long Island, according to Jakob Holder, the Foundation’s Executive Director. Edward Albee was 88 years old.
Located in Montauk, the Edward F. Albee Foundation was begun with revenue from Mr. Albee’s enormously successful play WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? The Foundation maintains a residency program known as The William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center, housed in a large, white converted barn, and was created with the intent of aiding visual artists and writers. The facility is open from June to mid-October; residencies are four or six weeks in duration, with the standards for admission simply put – talent and need. Writers are offered a room; visual artists are offered a room and studio space. The foundation accepts application between January 1st and March 1st every year through its website: www.albeefoundation.org
Notable writers and artists who have attended in past years include: John Duff, Christopher Durang, Will Eno, Spalding Gray, Cindy Hinant, A.M. Homes, Tom Holmes, Keith Milow, Sean Scully and Mia Westerlund-Roosen.
According to Mr. Holder, the Edward F. Albee Foundation will continue its mission as established 50 years ago, “Edward created our foundation with the sole intention of assisting as many talented creative people as possible We will continue to do exactly that, keeping his unique sensibility as our guiding force.”
EDWARD ALBEE wrote more than 30 plays, including The Zoo Story; The Death of Bessie Smith, The Sandbox, Fam and Yam, The American Dream; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony Award); The Ballad of the Sad Café; Tiny Alice; A Delicate Balance (Pulitzer Prize); Box and Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung; All Over; Seascape (Pulitzer Prize); Listening; Counting the Ways; The Man Who Had Three Arms; Finding the Sun; Marriage Play; Three Tall Women (Pulitzer Prize); Fragments; The Play About the Baby; The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (Tony); Occupant; At Home at the Zoo (Homelife/The Zoo Story); and Me, Myself and I. He was a member of the Dramatist Guild Council and president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Mr. Albee was awarded the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1980 and in 1996 received the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts. In 2005 he was awarded a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.