Page 58 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 3 Spring 2014

SPOTLIGHT
Alumni Association
Award Recipients
The Alumni Award is the highest honor the
Association can bestow on an alumnus/a
to recognize the excellence of his or her
lifeworks and commitment to the spirit
of community. This year’s honorees in-
cluded Albert R. “Pete” Gurney Jr. ’48,
Randa Wilkinson ’75, and Katharine
M. Esselen ’98, who were recog-
nized at an April 2 ceremony held
at the Harvard Club of New York
City. The event combined the
award presentations with
the Annual Meeting of the
Alumni Association.
Gurney ’48
Prolific Playwright
At 83, Pete Gurney ’48 takes 30 minutes
away from his desk to share tales of a
career that spans more than half a century.
He has been hard at work on another play
today, though he already has written more
than 50 of them.
“I don’t believe in retirement for me,”
he says, with a hearty laugh. “Writing is
what I do. Even if I don’t write a pretty
good play, it’s a world I still want to be
in. Like any professional, I want to keep
these skills alive. I am 83 years old and
am still connecting with audiences
through my work.”
Gurney has always been a writer. His
favorite English teacher at St. Paul’s was
Frederick Arthur Philbrick, who was “an
astute critic and appreciative when you
wrote a good phrase.” He went on to Wil-
liams College before enlisting in the U.S.
Navy. As an officer on the USS Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, Gurney filled long, tedi-
ous hours writing musicals using the ship’s
band that substituted original lyrics in
popular songs of the 1950s.
“I learned how to entertain a bunch of
disgruntled sailors,” he says. “I was a mem-
ber of the military community and was the
artistic spokesman. But my shows on the
FDR were fairly successful and that per-
suaded me to go to Yale School of Drama.”
While at Yale, Gurney wrote Love in Buf-
falo , which became the first musical ever
produced at the School of Drama. He also
sold to a visiting television producer a short
play written in one of his classes. The play
– Who Is Sally? – aired on network TV. A
musical version of Tom Sawyer followed
on its heels, but then Gurney hit what he
calls a “dry spell,” chalking it up to a need
to refill his well of life experience – mar-
riage, family, career – before focusing
once again on his writing. He returned
more seriously to his creative work while
teaching humanities at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (1960-96).
Though reluctant to view himself as such,
Gurney is known in the theatre world as
one of its most prolific playwrights. He
doesn’t like to pick favorites, but among
the dozens of plays he has authored, those
that have enjoyed the most financial suc-
cess are The Dining Room, Love Letters,
Sylvia, and The Cocktail Hour. (“That’s a
play about family dynamics and booze,”
he says.) Other works include The Old Boy,
Black Tie, Scenes from American Life,
Children, Richard Cor, The Middle Ages,
Far East, The Golden Age, What I Did Last
Summer, The Perfect Party, The Snow Ball,
Overtime, A Cheever Evening, Later Life ,
and Another Antigone.
Called the “John Cheever of the Ameri-
can stage,” Gurney has also written three
novels and several television shows. He
has received a Drama Desk Award and
has earned recognition from the National
Endowment of the Arts, the Rockefeller
Foundation, and the Theatre Hall of Fame.
A two-time Lucille Lortel Award recipient,
his works have appeared on Broadway,
off-Broadway, and around the world. In
2006, he was inducted into the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
“I’ve had some successes and failure, as
most writers have had at times,” he says.
“My plays are like my children – I am proud
of them all. Sometimes a child will surprise
you by showing a whole new dimension;
so will a play. It’s exciting to know that
somehow I’ve created a community in the
audience. That’s what I have always tried
to do, and what I will continue to try to do.”
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