photo submitted by Bruce-Michael Gelbert
playwright Lanford Wilson
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Openly gay playwright Lanford Wilson, born in Lebanon, Missouri, on April 13, 1937, passed away in Wayne, New Jersey, on March 24 at the age of 73, and marquees of Off-Broadway theaters were dimmed in his memory on the following night. His play “The Madness of Lady Bright,” given by TOSOS in 2006 and written for the pioneering Caffe Cino, home of alternative theater, of gay theater, and the opera “Summer and Smoke,” given by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater in 2010, with music by Lee Hoiby and libretto by Wilson, have been considered in these pages. “So Long at the Fair,” his first, also written for the Cino, “Balm in Gilead,” first given at La Mama, “Burn This,” “The Hot L Baltimore,” “The Fifth of July,” and “Talley’s Folly” are among his other plays. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama—for “Talley’s Folly;” New York Drama Critics Circle Awards; and Obies, awarded for Off-Broadway plays. He was a longtime resident of Sag Harbor, Long Island, where his funeral was scheduled to be held.