L O O K I N G B A C K O N
LEGACY
In the final production of the 25th Anniversary Season , Signature is excited to revisit three plays from three Legacy playwrights – Edward Albee ’ s The Sandbox , María Irene Fornés ’ s Drowning , and Adrienne Kennedy ’ s Funnyhouse of a Negro . Each produced during their playwrights ’ original Signature seasons , these three works will be presented together as a single evening for the first time , celebrating Albee , Fornés , and Kennedy ’ s profound influence on American theatre . This spring , Signature ’ s Artistic Director Jim Houghton took a moment to reflect on the continued relevance of these three playwrights , and the impact they made on Signature ’ s history .
Signature : How did you first choose these three playwrights for their original Signature seasons ?
Jim Houghton : In many ways , I think Edward Albee ’ s season best embodies the Signature mission . At the point when we were coming to existence as a company , in the early nineties , he had been pretty much ignored by New York because he had a couple shows on Broadway that didn ’ t fare so well . He was pretty much dismissed after that . But when Signature was finishing up our first season with Romulus Linney , I realized , “ Oh my god , that ’ s our first season ! We have to do more seasons !” I had met Edward briefly while I was a graduate student at SMU , and so I asked Romulus to arrange for us to get together and for me to propose a season to Edward . We got together and I talked about what I thought Signature was about , what it meant to be a writer at Signature and to create context for work , and why I thought engagement with the artist was important . I was just rambling on in some long diatribe , and Edward interrupted and said “ Let ’ s do this .” And that ’ s how the third season of Signature Theatre came to be . We ended up doing five premiere plays of his in New York City during the 1993-94 Season – Marriage Play , Counting the Ways , Listening , Fragments , and then a trio of plays : Box , The Sandbox , and Finding the Sun . It amazed me to think that this playwright had five premiere plays waiting to be produced .
And during that season , Edward became family to me . And not just to me , but also to my wife Joyce and my kids Lily and Henry . At the end of Edward ’ s season , his career just totally changed . He won the Pulitzer for Three Tall Women . His plays were being produced all over . It was like that season at Signature reminded the theatre community of the depth and breadth and quality of Edward ’ s body of work .
I was first exposed to María Irene Fornés ’ s work when I was a young actor , and I actually performed in her play Drowning . I think that play is some of the best 15-20 minutes ’ worth of writing that I have ever experienced as a performer . I didn ’ t know Irene personally when I called to ask her about doing a season at Signature , but I quickly learned that she is a true character – she is both eccentric and incredibly grounded . It ’ s what makes her work so visceral in a way . It ’ s raw , it ’ s immediate , it ’ s brave . She doesn ’ t fool around . Irene and I talked through her entire body of work , and what we might do for the 1999-2000 Season . We settled on a new play of hers called Letters from Cuba , the New York premiere of Enter the Night , and then Mud and Drowning presented together as a single evening . I ’ ve always thought of Mud as a signature work of Irene ’ s , and Drowning was a bit of a lesser known play of hers – but it ’ s an
I felt that putting Edward , Irene , and Adrienne together in the same night was really compelling in what it says about the roots of our theatre and the legacies these three writers have . But these plays also feel so deeply relevant today .
23