Gross publishes on Playwright Gurney
19 December 2005 Gross publishes on Playwright Gurney
An essay by Robert F. Gross, director of theatre, on Buffalo-born dramatist A.R. Gurney appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism.
In Forms of Restraint: High Comic Renunciation in Three Plays by A.R. Gurney, Gross investigates the dark, coercive side of three Gurney comedies: Mrs. Farnsworth, The Cocktail Hour, and The Golden Age.
Gross, a professor of English, who joined the faculty in 1987, holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a master's from Ohio State, and his doctorate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He taught at Cornell and UNC before joining the HWS faculty.
Gurney earned a master's in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, and in 1958, wrote Love in Buffalo, the first musical ever produced at Yale. He later joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where he taught for several years.
His breakthrough success came in 1982 with The Dining Room. Other award-winning Gurney plays include The Perfect Party, Another Antigone, Love Letters, A Cheever Evening, and Later Life.