The Playwright

A. R. Gurney 

A.R. Gurney, less formally known as "Pete," is one of the most prolific and produced playwrights in America. His work focuses primarily on the issues and realities of middle-class American life and has been produced on international theatre stages for more than 30 years.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College in 1952, Gurney joined the United States Navy during the Korean War, writing shows to entertain the military personnel. Following his discharge in 1955, he enrolled in the Yale School of Drama where he received his Master's degree in playwriting. Later he joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge where he taught until 1987.

In 1958, Gurney wrote Love in Buffalo, which was the first musical everproduced at Yale. His first play, The David Show, was produced in New York in 1968. In 1970, Scenes from American Life received its world premiere at the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo. During the 1970s, he wrote two novels and several plays, including Children, which premiered in London, England in 1974.

His breakthrough success came in 1982 with The Dining Room. Other award-winning plays include The Middle Ages, Richard Cory, The Golden Age, What I Did Last Summer, The Wayside Motor Inn, Sweet Sue, The Perfect Party. Another Antigone, The Cocktail Hour, Love Letters, The Old Boy, The Fourth Wall, Later Life, A Cheever Evening, Sylvia, Overtime, Let's Do It (a Cole Porter musical), Labor Day, Far East, Darlene And The Guest Lecturer, and Ancestral Voices.

Love Letters, written in 1989, has enjoyed tremendous success for many years with its two-character cast who read the play side by side at a desk.  The characters are a man and a woman who exchange letters in a warm and complicated friendship lasting 50 years.  The play's co-stars have included Richard Thomas and Swoosie Kurtz, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward among others. In 1991 he adapted his own novel, The Snow Ball, for the stage; it premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. His other novels include The Gospel According to Joe and Entertaining Strangers.  In the fall of 1999, Gurney wrote the libretto for "Strawberry Fields" with music by Michael Torke, as part of the Central Park Opera trilogy presented by the New York City Opera.

His most recent play is The Grand Manner, a play about his real life encounter with famed actress Katharine Cornell in her production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The play was produced and performed by Lincoln Center for the summer of 2010. It was also produced in Buffalo by the Kavinoky Theatre.

Gurney has also written several novels, including The Snow Ball, The Gospel According to Joe and Entertaining Strangers. He appeared in several of his plays including The Dining Room and most notably Love Letters. In 2006, Gurney was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Gurney is the recipient of many awards, notably a Drama Desk Award in 1971, a Rockefeller Award in 1977 and two Lucille Lortel Awards in 1989 and 1994.  He has also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the New England Theatre Conference. He and his wife, Molly, have four children and six grandchildren.