The House of Blue Leaves | Author Biography

John Guare was born in New York City, on February 5, 1938. He was the only child of Edward and Helen Claire Guare. Raised in a strict Catholic household, Guare attended mass daily with his mother. His father, Edward, worked in the Wall Street stock exchange as a clerk.

Guare was a voracious reader. He also went to the theater quite often and was fascinated by Broadway musicals. His mother’s brother, Billy Grady, was a casting director at MGM studios. In the mid- 1940s, Grady was casting a new version of Huckleberry Finn. Guare put on a show for him similar to the one described in The House of Blue Leaves.

John Guare
John Guare

Guare began writing plays at age eleven. After graduating from St. John’s Preparatory School in Brooklyn, Guare earned his B.A. from Georgetown in 1960, then his M.F.A. in drama from Yale in 1963. His first play was produced in 1962.

After graduation, Guare served in the Air Force Reserves to avoid the military draft and spent the next several years in Europe. While living abroad, he managed to have a one-act play, To Wally Pantoni, We Leave a Credenza (1964), produced in New York City.

In 1965, Guare got the idea for The House of Blue Leaves while still in Europe. After a successful staged reading in New York City in 1966, he had numerous offers for production but could not produce a solid second act.

While Guare continued to work on the play, he churned out several successful one-acts, including Muzeeka (1967), which won him his first Obie Award. On the basis of these short plays, he was recognized as one of America’s best young playwrights.

Yet Guare had a lot of trouble finishing The House of Blue Leaves. He returned to Europe for a short time, where he finally wrote a solid draft. When the play was produced Off-Broadway in 1971, it proved to be his first big success and his first successful full-length play.

The House of Blue Leaves garnered numerous awards; yet it also produced much critical controversy over his use of black comedy, farce, and social realism. It is regarded by many critics to be his best play.

After House of Blue Leaves, Guare continued to explore the danger of fame while living up to his billing as a great American playwright. In Marco Polo Sings a Solo (1973), for example, the main character, an astronaut, tries to live up to the reputation the media has created for him.

Not all Guare’s plays were successful, nor did every critic like his dramatic style. His 1979 melodrama, Bosoms and Neglect, lasted for only four performances. In the 1980s, after writing the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for Atlantic City, Guare wrote a trilogy of Civil War-centered melodramas, which were relatively unsuccessful.

After a successful revival of The House of Blue Leaves on Broadway in 1986, Guare produced another of his most successful plays, Six Degrees of Separation (1990). He also wrote the screenplay for the film version several years later. He continues to write both for the theater and film.