Stage Raw: Lanford Wilson dies

                                                                 
LANFORD WILSON (1937-2011)

Playwright Lanford Wilson, one of the founders of New York's Off-Off- Broadway movement died today. He was 73

He was a founding member of Circle Repertory Theatre in 1969, and many of his plays were produced there.

His writing style was varied, swinging from the Chekhovian, cinematic impressionism of Rimers of Eldritch, to the the gentle farce of Hot l Baltimore, to conventional narratives such as Burn This   — slated to open at the Mark Taper Forum April 3, and marking the second time that theater has produced that play, having premiered it in 1987. 

Wilson's play writing career started in 1963 in Greenwich Village at the Caffe Cino. The Madness of Lady Bright

— dealing with homosexual themes — marked the longest running hit at that theater. 

Wilson received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1980 for his play, Talley's Folly.

Other works include Fifth of July, and Balm in Gilead.

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