Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937March 24, 2011) was a Pulitzer Prize winning, American
playwright, whose work, as described by the
New York Times, was "earthy, realist, greatly admired [and] widely performed". Wilson also helped to advance the
Off-Off-Broadway theater movement with his earliest plays, which were first produced in New York at the
Caffe Cino beginning in 1964. He was one of the first playwrights to move from Off-Off-Broadway, to Off-Broadway, then Broadway, and beyond. He received the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980 and was elected in 2001 to the
Theater Hall of Fame. In 2004, Wilson was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the
PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist. He was nominated for three
Tony Awards and has won a
Drama Desk Award and five
Obie Awards.