Edward Franklin Albee III (pronounced /ˈɔːlbiː/ "AWL-bee"; born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright known for works including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and The American Dream. His works are considered well-crafted and often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger American playwrights, such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee's dedication to continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia? (2000) — also routinely marks him as distinct from other American playwrights of his era.
According to Magill's Survey of American Literature (2007), Edward Albee was born somewhere in Virginia (contrary to the popular belief that he was born in Washington D.C.). He was adopted two weeks later and taken to Westchester County, New York. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee — himself the son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II — owned several theaters, where young Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child. His adoptive mother was Reed's third wife, Frances.
Albee attended the Rye Country Day School in New York, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, where he was expelled. He then was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1945 at the age of 17. He next enrolled in the graduate studies program at Choate prep school in Connecticut, graduating in 1946. His formal education continued at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel.
Albee left home for good when he was in his late teens, later saying in an interview, "They weren't very good at being parents, and I wasn't very good at being a son." He told interviewer Charlie Rose that he was "thrown out" because his parents wanted him to become a "corporate thug", and didn't approve of his aspirations to become a writer.
The less than diligent student later dedicated much of his time to promoting American university theatre, frequently speaking at campuses and serving as a distinguished professor at the University of Houston from 1989 to 2003.
A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee has received three Pulitzer Prizes for drama — for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), Three Tall Women (1994); a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005); the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1980); as well as the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts (both in 1996).
Albee is the President of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., which maintains the William Flanagan Creative Persons Center, a writers and artists colony in Montauk, New York. Albee's longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor, died on May 2, 2005, the result of a two year-long battle with bladder cancer.
In 2008, in celebration of his eightieth birthday, numerous Albee plays are being mounted in distinguished Off Broadway venues, including the historic Cherry Lane Theatre, where the playwright himself is directing two of his one-acts, The American Dream and The Sandbox, which were produced at the theater in 1961 and 1962, respectively.
