Edward Albee Receives Princeton Fellowship; Christopher Durang to be Given Harvard Arts Medal

Award-winning playwrights Edward Albee and Christopher Durang are both recipients of major honors from Ivy League universities.

Albee, the author of such plays as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Goat, has been named the first recipient of the Princeton University-McCarter Theatre Playwriting Fellowship. The new theatrical initiative, funded by the Ford Foundation, will bring Albee to campus for several months beginning in fall 2007. While in residence, he will create a major new work that will be produced by the McCarter, and he will teach in Princeton’s Program in Theater and Dance. “Edward Albee acutely understands the function of art in a free society,” stated McCarter artistic director Emily Mann. “As America’s premier living playwright, he is also an incisive critic of American culture, and has dedicated much of his life to teaching the craft and art of writing.”

Durang will receive the Harvard Arts Medal, presented by his alma mater, Harvard University, on Friday, May 5 as part of the school’s ARTS FIRST 2006 celebration. Immediately after the presentation, Durang — the author of such works as The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Miss Witherspoon — will participate in a discussion about his work and creative process, to be moderated by fellow Harvard alumnus John Lithgow. Previous recipients of the Harvard Arts Medal include Jack Lemmon, Peter Sellars, and Bonnie Raitt.