Who is lanford wilson

Theater buffs would immediately guess Tennessee Williams. But they would be wrong. The playwright these theater artists and academics were gathered to discuss was the other troubled, gay Missouri playwright who leveraged his early difficulties into powerful stage depictions: Lanford Wilson.

Wilson and Williams shared not only the experience of growing up in Missouri but also a professional collaboration and a friendship. Williams was born in Mississippi and moved to St. Louis when he was a young boy. He bombed out of ROTC at the University of Missouri, where he wrote his first known play and short story and tried to study journalism before his father pulled him out of school and put him to work at a shoe factory in St.

Wilson was born in Lebanon, Mo. There he cofounded the groundbreaking Circle Repertory Company and helped drive the off-Broadway scene that championed the work of new American plays. The director also worked with Williams, and he sees strong similarities as well as distinct differences between the two.

Both playwrights channeled the pain of their heartland youth into settings of marginalization, violence and despair, and both created memorable characters struggling against these forces. Wilson is best known for his trilogy of plays depicting the Talley family. The same was true of Williams. Even his major themes — the conflict between the traditional past and the insidious present, between surrogate families and a life of lonely isolation — carry echoes of the master.

And it is no accident that one of Wilson's early works was an adaptation of Williams's Summer and Smoke. I first became aware of Wilson's work in the mids. I particularly remember a production of The Hot l Baltimore, which was then in its second year at the Circle in the Square theatre in New York. Set in a flaking hotel doomed for demolition the title refers to its damaged sign , the play was an unashamed lament for a disappearing America.

As the hotel staff went about their business, they were helped and hindered by a girl with a passion for old trains, old people and even old hotels with faulty elevator systems. The play was a touch folksy, but it expressed Wilson's prime concerns. The Talley trilogy again used buildings as a symbol of the emotional conflict between past and present.

I chiefly remember Fifth of July, partly because it contained a fine performance by William Hurt and partly because it offered a poignant evocation of America's recent past. The action revolved around the sale of the family house. But the characters I recall are Ken Hurt , whose legs had been paralysed in the Vietnam war, and his gay lover: their tenderness again reminded me of Williams.

Of Wilson's later work, Burn This made the most impact. It dealt with three people, all afraid of passion, whose lives are disrupted by the death of a friend and the appearance of his brother, who is as volatile as they are repressed. It confirmed that Wilson was a talented craftsman of dialogue and very good at dramatising a fear of commitment.

Lanford Wilson obituary. Known For. The Migrants Writer. American Playhouse Writer. Lemon Sky Writer. New York Television Theatre Writer. Show all Hide all Show by Jump to: Writer Additional Crew Self. Hide Show Writer 18 credits. The Great Nebula in Orion Short post-production. TV Movie. Hide Show Additional Crew 1 credit.

Hide Show Self 6 credits. Joseph A. Wach was director and directing intern. Dennis Bigelo was director. Jerry Turner was artistic director. See more ».