Introduction


Lanford Wilson
An incredibly prolific playwright, Lanford Wilson is one of the cofounders of the Circle Repertory Company where many of his plays were first produced. He began his theatrical career in New York at the Café Cino, a small coffeehouse that specialized in avant-garde work. While there, Wilson met director Marshall W. Mason, whom he ended up collaborating with on several projects, most notably the epic play Balm in Gilead. Circle Repertory’s first success was Wilson’s Hot L Baltimore, which ran for over one thousand performances before moving to Broadway. Wilson’s most famous works are the plays Fifth of July, Talley’s Folly, and Talley and Son, a trilogy centered on the Talley family. Talley’s Folly won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1979.

Essential Facts

  1. Wilson and Mason did not originally get along. In fact, Mason criticized Wilson’s rewrite of his play Home Free.
  2. Wilson’s play Lemon Sky is completely autobiographical and deals in part with his father’s refusal to accept his son’s homosexuality.
  3. Wilson learned to speak Russian so that he could translate the works of his favorite playwright, Anton Chekhov.
  4. Wilson writes operettas in addition to plays. He has worked with composer Lee Hoiby on This Is the Rill Speaking.
  5. Wilson’s homosexuality influences much of his writing. He incorporated openly gay characters in several of his plays, and even his works that do not feature gay characters often depict people who have been ostracized from society.