A.R. Gurney was an American playwright, novelist, and academic. Among his most popular plays are The Dining Room (1982), Sweet Sue (1986), Love Letters (1988), and Sylvia (1995).
Born on November 1, 1930, in Buffalo, New York, Gurney (known as “Pete”) was the scion of a distinguished upper-middle-class family — the son of a successful real estate and insurance executive, the grandson of a lawyer and member of the New York State Assembly, and the great-grandson of a former Mayor of Buffalo and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. This upbringing served as the inspiration and setting for many of his plays and contributed to his stories of the lives of upper-class White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) in contemporary America.
Growing up “surrounded by plays,” as he often described his childhood, Gurney graduated from Williams College and served for three years in the Navy before his discharge in 1955. In 1957, he married Mary Forman “Molly” Goodyear, who was also a member of a prominent and successful Buffalo family. Also that year, he enrolled in a playwriting program at the Yale School of Drama from which he graduated in 1958. He then accepted a position teaching Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an institution where he would eventually teach full- and part-time over the course of nearly 40 years.
While first at MIT, Gurney wrote Love in Buffalo, a show that became the first musical to be produced by the Yale School of Drama. His New York City debut came in 1968 with The David Show, a play that closed after only one performance following poor reviews by New York theater critics. Three years later, however, in 1971, he would go on to win a Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Scenes from American Life.
While at MIT, Gurney wrote other successful plays such as Children (TACT, 2011) and The Middle Ages. In 1981, he moved with his family to New York City to be closer to the theater community. It was there that he first showed his agent, Gilbert Parker, his newest play, The Dining Room. His agent told him the play “would never be a success.”
Disappointed but still determined, Gurney contacted Andre Bishop, the Artistic Director of Playwrights Horizons, who agreed to produce the play subject to Gurney’s finding a suitable director. Reaching out to friend and fellow playwright David Trainer, Gurney staged a reading of The Dining Room that led to the debut of the work in January 1982 at the Studio Theater of Playwrights Horizon. Featuring a then-unknown ensemble of talented actors comprising William H. Macy, Remak Ramsay, John Shea, Lois de Banzie, Ann McDonough, and Pippa Pearthree, the play was praised by critics and audience members alike and ultimately became a Pulitzer Prize nominee in 1985 (when the winner was Sunday in the Park with George).
Thanks to the success of The Dining Room, Gurney decided to take a break from teaching to write for the theatre full-time. He was struck with what he called “a creative streak,” writing one or two new plays a year for many years. During this time, he received numerous writing honors and awards, including a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play for The Cocktail Party in 1989 and another Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination for Love Letters in 1990.
In 2004, Gurney was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame. In 2006, he was named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for sustained work. In 2007, he received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist. He has also served as a member of the Artistic Board of Playwrights Horizons, the New York theater company that launched his career.
Gurney continued to write until his death at the age of 86 in June of this year. He is survived by his wife, Molly, four children, and eight grandchildren.
TACT Celebrates A.R. “Pete” Gurney
In spring 2014, TACT honored Gurney at its annual Spring Gala, where the company saluted him and his more than four decades of work in the theatre.
In fall 2011, TACT staged Gurney’s play Children as its Mainstage production at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row — first New York production of the play in 25 years. Directed by Scott Alan Evans, the cast included company members Darrie Lawrence, Margaret Nichols, Richard Thieriot, and Lynn Wright.
