Edward Albee burst onto the American theatrical scene in the late 1950s with a variety of plays that detailed the agonies and disillusionment of that decade and the transition from the calm Eisenhower to the turbulent 1960s. Albee became a serious dramatist dealing with serious but always relevant themes, primarily having to do with the predicament of humanity in a society with moral decay, as well as the conflict between reality and illusion. His work is considered to be unique, uncompromising, controversial, elliptical, and provocative. Born on March 12, 1928, in Washington D.C., Edward Albee was a couple weeks old when he was adopted by Reed and Frances Albee. He was taken to live in Westchester, New York. His adoptive father owned a chain of vaudeville theaters there, which gave the young Edward an early exposure to theater personalities. It was said that he lived a comfortable childhood having servants, tutors, riding lessons, winters spent in Miami and having an enormous wardrobe in his room sized closet. He was not very happy however. His strong-minded mother and him shared different views. While she tried to mold him into a respectable member of the Larchmont, New York social scene, he strongly opposed and chose to associate with artists and intellectuals whom she found quite objectionable. He felt dejected when she kicked him out of the family mansion for homosexuality. From there he moved to Greenwich Village where he took up such jobs as an office boy, record salesmen, and a messenger for western union which was his favorite. “I didn’t use my mind at all, and walking around the Upper West Side was good exercise.” School was not a favorite for Edward Albee. He was sent to select preparatory and military schools, which he was first shipped off to at the age of eleven. Albee attended the Choate school from 1944 to 1946, when he enrolled at Trinity College, which was a small liberal arts institution ...
