Edward Franklin Albee III (/ˈɔːlbiː/ AWL-bee; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Some critics have argued that some of his work constitutes an American variant of what Martin Esslin identified as and named the Theater of the Absurd.

He had attracted theatre attention by having scripted and published nine poems, eleven short stories, essays, a long act play, Schism, and a 500-page novel, The Flesh of Unbelievers (Horn, 1) in 1946.

His formal education continued at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel.

"[5] In 2008, he told interviewer Charlie Rose that he was "thrown out" because his parents wanted him to become a "corporate thug" and did not approve of his aspirations to be a writer.

[11] Primarily in his early plays, Albee's work had various representations of the LGBTQIA community often challenging the image of a heterosexual marriage.

[15] Albee's most iconic play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on October 13, 1962, and closed on May 16, 1964, after five previews and 664 performances.

[18] An Academy Award-winning film adaptation by Ernest Lehman was released in 1966 starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis, and was directed by Mike Nichols.

[21] The play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre with John Gielgud directing and starred Jessica Tandy, Madeleine Sherwood, and Colleen Dewhurst.

[24] Clive Barnes of The New York Times declared the play "a major event", adding, "As Mr. Albee has matured as a playwright, his work has become leaner, sparer and simpler.

He depends on strong theatrical strokes to attract the attention of the audience, but the tone of the writing is always thoughtful, even careful, even philosophic."

[25] Albee continued to write plays including Listening (1976), Counting the Ways (1976) before a brief break before The Lady from Dubuque (1980) which had a short run on Broadway.

[26] He wrote the three act play The Man Who Had Three Arms (1983) which was received negatively with Frank Rich of The New York Times writing, "isn't a play - it's a temper tantrum in two acts... One of the more shocking lapses of Mr. Albee's writing is that he makes almost no attempt even to pretend that Himself is anything other than a maudlin stand-in for himself, with the disappearing arm representing an atrophied talent.

The play was revived in 2018 directed by Joe Mantello starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and Allison Pill.

Allison Adato of Entertainment Weekly wrote of the play, "Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, in which a nonagenarian revisits events of her life refracted through both her own dementia and the differing recollections of her younger selves, is a not-quite-memory play filled with regret, resentment, entitlement, various bodily indignities".

He served as a Distinguished Professor of Playwriting and held the Lyndall Finley Wortham Chair in the Performing Arts at the University of Houston.

[34] The foundation's mission is "to serve writers and visual artists from all walks of life, by providing time and space in which to work without disturbance.

[citation needed] In 2008, in celebration of Albee's 80th birthday, a number of his plays were mounted in distinguished Off-Broadway venues, including the historic Cherry Lane Theatre where the playwright directed two of his early one-acts, The American Dream and The Sandbox.