The human condition and Edward Albee, playwright of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

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Originally uploaded by mikecontiphotos

Edward Franklin Albee III (born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright best known for works, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and The American Dream. His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition, says Wikipedia.

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 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).