Lanford Wilson: The Mozart From Missouri

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Talent like LANFORD WILSON’s would stand out anywhere.

Flyer, Lanford’s The Sand Castle, La Mama, 1965, starring CLARIS NELSON, WALTER HARRIS, JOYCE ARON, MICHAEL GRISWOLD, and JOHN KRAMER, dir. MARSHALL W. MASON.

Wilsons were lucky for the Cino. DORIC WILSON’s four one-acts in 1961 cemented its image as a venue for new plays, and all but created the concept of Off-Off Broadway. LANFORD WILSON’s ten Cino plays, with frequent revivals, made him a superstar, and “What’s playing at the Cino?” a Village byword. Lance’s work raised the bar again and again, and helped to inspire unprecedented variety and fructfulness in Off-Off playwrights.

Lanford’s legendary facility at playwrighting extended to other areas as well. He made the beautiful bead-encrusted Ferris wheel used in so many productions of his macabre Home Free. Here MICHAEL WARREN POWELL, a frequent collaborator, plays with it in the UK production.

Lanford also made the cut-and-pasted poster for This Is the Rill Speaking, and memorable Christmas tree decorations for CLARIS NELSON.

I kept rejecting Lanford’s poster designs for my first play as “too weak” or “too delicate.” In a rage, he slashed a stark “X” and said, “For God’s sake, is this what you want?” When I cried, “Yes!” he mused at it, then insisted on doing a hundred more to get “the right angry X.”

Top to bottom, left to right are actor MICHAEL POWELL, director WILLIAM ARCHIBALD, actress MAYA KENIN, lighting designer CHUCK GOLDEN, and author LANCE WILSON. Photo: CONRAD WARD. August, 1964, on the set of Home Free.

Lanford’s generosity to other playwrights is well-known. He insisted that my work be included in Collision Course, a dramatic revue in 1969. Here are Jack Larson, Lance, Terrence McNally, me, Jules Feiffer, Leonard Melfi, and Israel Horowitz at the Caffe au Go Go. Photo courtesy Jack Larson. (Lance and I both presented skits which we had created for the Cino.)

Lanford’s The Madness of Lady Bright, 1964, made NEIL FLANAGAN (right) the star actor of Off-Off Broadway, Lanford the star writer, and the Cino the throbbing heart of an unannounced, unplanned, unprecedented theatre movement. The equally revolutionary fact that it was the first conspicuous sympathetic (heroic?) dramatic treatment of a homsoexual–and a raving, effeminate stereotype at that–took second place to the world’s discovery of Lanford’s liquid, lambent, lyrical, lovely lnes, and his deft, playful sense of theatrical magic and manipulation. The play’s power and poetry made it impossible any longer to be casual about “doin’ a play.” There were new stakes of style, status, stunningness, stardom! (Photo: JAMES D. GOSSAGE)

Lanford, like CLARIS NELSON, has had a long and fruitful relationship with director MARSHALL W. MASON at the Cino, La Mama, notably at Circle Rep of which they were founders, and then far and wide. Left to right, Bill Hurt starred in The 5th of July Off-Broadway, Chris Reeve on Broadway, and Richard Thomas on screen. Center, Marshall directs. Photo from Marshall’s BOOK.

Me and Lanford being interviewed for PBS at Phebe’s Bar in 1975 by producer Richard Barr.