Posts Tagged ‘Plays’
Wouk, Herman
by Laurence W. Mazzeno (2000) WOUK, HERMAN (1915-2019). Herman Wouk, author of the best-selling sea novel The Caine Mutiny (1951) and other works about the navy in World War II, was born in New York City, eldest son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Educated at Columbia University, Wouk spent the years before World War II working in…
Read MoreWilson, August
by Sarah Dohan (2016) WILSON, AUGUST (1945-2005). August Wilson, a prominent American playwright, was born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 27, 1945 to Frederick Kittel, a German baker, and Daisy Wilson Kittel, an African American cleaning woman. Born the fourth of six children, he grew up in a crowded two-bedroom apartment behind…
Read MoreWilliams, Tennessee
by Felicia Hardison Londre (2000) WILLIAMS, TENNESSEE [THOMAS LANIER] (1911-1983). Winner of four New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards and two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays, Tennessee Williams is most identified with the American South. He was born in Mississippi and spent his early childhood there until the family settled in St. Louis in 1918.…
Read MoreWalcott, Derek
by Jill B. Gidmark (2000) WALCOTT, DEREK [ALTON] (1930-2017). Winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature, Derek Walcott identifies in his life and work two primary inspirations: the Caribbean Sea and his mixed-race heritage. Born and raised in the harbor city of Castries, St. Lucia, grandson of two white men and two black women, Walcott…
Read MoreVidal, Gore
by Donald Yannella (2000) VIDAL, GORE [EUGENE LUTHER] (1925-2012). Gore Vidal was born in West Point, New York, attended Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and served in the army during World War II. A novelist, playwright, and essayist, he occasionally employs maritime settings in his work. In Empire (1987), for example, the sea is…
Read MoreRowson, Susanna H.
by Philip Barnard (2000) ROWSON, SUSANNA H[ASWELL]. (1762-1824). Born in Portsmouth, England, Susanna H. Rowson became an actress, educator, prolific writer in several genres, and notably the author of Charlotte Temple (1791), America’s first best-selling novel. Rowson’s father, William Haswell, was a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, and her childhood and adolescence were marked by…
Read MoreRice, Elmer
by Brian T. Carney (2000) RICE, ELMER (1892-1967). Born Elmer Reizenstein, the playwright Elmer Rice is best known for his realistic and expressionistic dramas of urban life. However, he turned to the sea for two of his plays. Between Two Worlds (first perf. 1934; pub. 1935) takes place on the S.S. Farragut, traveling from New York…
Read MoreO’Neill, Eugene
by Margaret Loftus Ranald (2000) O’NEILL, EUGENE [GLADSTONE] (1888-1953). Eugene O’Neill, America’s preeminent playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize (1936) and four Pulitzer Prizes (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957), was born in the Barrett Hotel, New York City, son of the actor James O’Neill and his wife, Mary Ellen (Ella) Quinlan. O’Neill was always attracted to the…
Read MoreMerwin, Samuel
by Robert Beasecker (2000) MERWIN, SAMUEL (1874-1936). Born in Evanston, Illinois, Samuel Merwin attended Northwestern University but did not graduate. His literary career began with the publication of two popularly acclaimed novels, The Short Line War (1899) and Calumet “K” (1901), written in collaboration with his boyhood friend Henry Kitchell Webster. Following the separation of this…
Read MoreMcNally, Terrence
by David R. Pellegrini (1999) McNALLY, TERRENCE (1938-2020). Terrence McNally’s seriocomic dramas have won him acclaim as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 1990s, one particularly interested in the representation of gay men. Along with other dramatists who portray the healing and redemptive powers of nature for the urban character, McNally uses a…
Read MoreJewitt, John Rodgers
by Mary Malloy (2000) JEWITT, JOHN RODGERS (1783-1821). An Englishman who served aboard the American merchant vessel Boston, John Jewitt became famous as a “captive” of the Indians of Nootka Sound, off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when he survived the destruction of his ship and massacre of its crew in 1803. Born in…
Read MoreHowells, William Dean
by Udo Nattermann (2000) HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN (1837-1920). A native of Ohio, William Dean Howells began to work in his father’s printing shop at age nine. A self-taught student of languages and literature, he early entered a career in journalism. After writing a campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln, Howells was appointed American consul to Venice, where…
Read MoreHowe, Tina
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) HOWE, TINA (1937- ). Obie-award-winning playwright Tina Howe often employs sea imagery as metaphoric devices in her plays. Born in Boston and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, Howe began to have her works professionally produced in the early 1970s; her plays often reflect her love of the New England seashore. For…
Read MoreHerne, James A.
by Attilio Favorini (2000) HERNE, JAMES A[HERN]. (1839-1901). James A. Herne was an actor, manager, and playwright whose early reputation as a successful melodramatist was established on the basis of his collaborations with playwright/producer/director David Belasco. Later in his career, however, he made a transition to a more realistic style, winning the approval of William Dean…
Read Morede Hartog, Jan
by James F. Millinger (2000) DE HARTOG, JAN (1914-2002). Born in Holland, Jan de Hartog ran off to sea when he was ten years old. Six years later he enrolled in Amsterdam Naval College and became a junior mate in the Dutch oceangoing tugboat service. Escaping to London under the German occupation, he served as…
Read MoreGreen, Paul
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) GREEN, PAUL [ELIOT] (1894-1981). A prolific playwright and poet whose literary career spanned several decades and genres, Paul Green is remembered chiefly for his dramatizations of southern folklore and customs and the plight of the African American in particular, in such plays as In Abraham’s Bosom (first perf. 1927; pub.…
Read MoreGlaspell, Susan
by Attilio Favorini (2000) GLASPELL, SUSAN [KEATING] (1876-1948). Associated with the Provincetown Players, a group that included Eugene O’Neill, Jig Cook, and Floyd Dell in the early years of their illustrious collaboration (1916- 1922), Susan Glaspell is best known for her novels and the play Trifles (1916). The only one of her plays in which…
Read MoreFerrini, Vincent
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) FERRINI, VINCENT (1913-2007). Vincent Ferrini was born into a blue-collar, immigrant family struggling to earn a living in the shoe factories of Lynn, Massachusetts. His first volume of poems, No Smoke (1941), records the depression-era deprivations of his early years. A reluctant graduate of high school, Ferrini read voraciously from the…
Read MoreDunlap, William
by Robert Beasecker (2000) DUNLAP, WILLIAM (1766-1839). William Dunlap, born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, showed considerable artistic aptitude at an early age and in 1784 was sent to England to study painting under Benjamin West. There, however, he became fascinated with the theater and, upon his arrival in New York three years later, soon…
Read MoreDoolittle, Hilda
by Gregg Allen Walker (2000) D[OOLITTLE]., H[ILDA]. (1886-1961). H. D., a poet, novelist, dramatist, and translator whose works often incorporate sea imagery, was born in Pennsylvania. Childhood visits to the seacoasts of Rhode Island and Maine first inspired H. D., best known for her imagist poetry, to write about the sea. “Hermes of the Ways”…
Read MoreDavis, Richard Harding
by Linda Ledford-Miller (2000) DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING (1864-1916). Born in Philadelphia, Richard Harding Davis was the first child born to the journalist L. Clarke Davis and the fiction writer Rebecca Harding Davis. He soon followed in his parents’ footsteps as a newspaperman and later the author of short stories, novels, and plays. Davis was not content…
Read MoreCoxe, Louis O.
by Robert Shenk (2000) COXE, LOUIS O[SBORNE]. (1918-1993). Louis O. Coxe was a student in Allen Tate’s Creative Arts program at Princeton when Pearl Harbor occurred. Having grown up in Salem, Massachusetts, Coxe joined the navy. He came to regard his wartime service at sea as the central experience of his life. Coxe’s naval service…
Read MoreBradbury, Ray
by Jonathan R. Eller (2000) BRADBURY, RAY [DOUGLAS] (1920-2012). Ray Bradbury, prolific author of twenty story collections and eight novels evolving out of more than 340 published short stories, was born in Waukegan, Illinois. He has lived in Los Angeles since 1934. His work as a writer of fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and juvenile…
Read MoreBehrman, S. N.
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) BEHRMAN, S[AMUEL]. N[ATHANIEL]. (1893-1973). The prolific playwright S. N. Behrman was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, into dire poverty; his entry into professional theatre was rapid, and by the mid-1920s he was already a notable literary figure. He remained a significant presence in the American theatre until the early 1960s; some…
Read MoreAlbee, Edward
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) ALBEE, EDWARD (1928-2016). A leading contemporary playwright, Edward Albee made his early reputation writing spare, psychological dramas, of which his most acclaimed and widely known remains Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (first perf. 1962; pub. 1962). An early one-act, The Sandbox (first perf. 1960; pub. 1960), employing such stylistic conceits…
Read MoreAiken, Conrad
by John T. Shawcross (2000) [AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER], “SAMUEL JEAKE JR.” (1889-1973). A friend and contemporary of T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken divided his time between England and the United States before settling in Massachusetts in 1947. He used the pen name “Samuel Jeake Jr.” during 1934-1936 as the London correspondent for the New Yorker, although…
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