Theater News

A.R. Gurney to Be Honored at Memorial Service at Broadway's Music Box Theatre

Many of Gurney’s favorite actors and directors will participate in the service on September 12.

The late A.R. Gurney will be honored at a memorial service at the Music Box Theatre on Tuesday, September 12.
The late A.R. Gurney will be honored at a memorial service at Music Box Theatre on Tuesday, September 12.
(© Tristan Fuge)

Playwright A.R. Gurney, who died on June 13, will be honored at a memorial service at the Music Box Theatre on Tuesday, September 12, at 1:30pm.

Jim Simpson and Carol Ostrow, the founder and producing director of the Flea Theater, respectively, have gathered many of Gurney's favorite actors and directors to participate. Members of the Bat Theater Company, the Flea's resident acting company for whom Gurney wrote four of his plays, will also be included.

As a playwright, Gurney made his off-Broadway debut with The David Show, which ran one night in October 1968. Among his more successful works are Children, The Middle Ages, The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Sylvia, and Love Letters, which was a finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. All told, Gurney wrote more than 45 plays, three novels, as well as several libretti for operas and musicals. In 2011, Gurney received an honorary Drama Desk Award "for his enduring, keenly observed portraits of American life over a prolific four-decade-long career."

A limited number of seats will be available to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors will open at 1pm. In lieu of flowers, Gurney's family has asked that donations be sent to the Flea Theater.