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| Tina Howe | |
Celebrated playwright Tina Howe, whose works include the Tony nominated Coastal Disturbances and Pulitzer finalists Pride's Crossing and Painting Churches, died August 28. She was 85.
Howe was born into a literary family: her grandfather Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe was a prolific writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1925. "Language was given significant power in her family, with Ms. Howe later recalling her father travelling to visit her in the hospital during a bout of hepatitis to read her James Joyce's Ulysses to strengthen her spirit," Playbill reported.
Her 14 full-length plays include Closing Time; The Nest; Birth and After Birth; Museum; The Art of Dining; Approaching Zanzibar; One Shoe Off; East of the Sun and West of the Moon; Rembrandt's Gift; Chasing Manet; and Cheri. Her final collection of short one-act plays, Where Women Go, was published in 2023. Howe translated two of Eugene Ionesco's works, The Bald Soprano and The Lesson, into English in 2004. She is also the subject of the book Howe in an Hour, edited by Judith Barlow.
"Known for her ability to enfold the art world into her work, Ms. Howe's plays are often considered extensions of the Absurdism tradition, with emotions heightened in the face of increasingly improbable scenarios through which her quirky cast of characters must navigate," Playbill noted.
Her many honors include a Guggenheim fellowship; an Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting; the Rockefeller Grant for Distinguished Playwriting; the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature; and the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for Master American Dramatist.
"We are saddened to hear the news of the passing of celebrated playwright Tina Howe," Theatre Communications Group Books posted on X (formerly Twitter). "In plays like Coastal Disturbances and Pride's Crossing, the two-time Pulitzer finalist fused European absurdism with a warm and witty style all her own. We are honored to publish her work."