Kennedy Center honoree Edward Albee is coming to Maine this month.
HEBRON – One of Broadway’s most honored playwrights is coming to Hebron Academy.
Edward Albee, the 75-year-old author of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and winner of three Pulitzer prizes, is scheduled to meet with students and give a free public speech at the school on Oct. 23.
While at Hebron, the playwright will help dedicate the Androscoggin Theater, a restored stage inside the Sargent Gymnasium. He is scheduled to give a 90-minute talk titled “A Conversation with Edward Albee.”
Hopefully, Albee will bring Broadway’s bright lights with him, say leaders of the private school.
Schools such as Hebron Academy need gifts and endowments to continue their work, and Albee’s appearance ought to shine a spotlight here, said John King, Hebron Academy’s head of school.
“This has been a tough time for preparatory schools in northern New England,” said King. “We don’t want to be a secret anymore.
“This is a unique opportunity for Hebron,” he said.
Albee brings with him enormous acclaim.
A friend of “Waiting for Godot” author Samuel Beckett, Albee’s fame began in the late 1950s with “The Zoo Story.” They helped create the theater of the absurd genre, which discarded many dramatic conventions.
Albee premiered “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1962, won his first Pulitzer in 1966 for “A Delicate Balance” and earned another in 1975 for “Seascape.”
His plays, sometimes allegorical or abstract, have a rapaciousness about them. Characters are rarely comforting, often confrontational and challenging.
In the late 1990s, Albee was awarded a Kennedy Center honor and the National Medal of Arts. He didn’t stop writing, though.
His 2002 play, “The Goat,” won Albee his second Tony award and his third Pulitzer.
At 75, the playwright still travels the country giving seminars, readings and speeches about drama.
At Hebron, Albee is scheduled to follow his dedication and speech with instruction to students the next day, what King described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The cost of Albee’s appearance and the theater restoration will be paid for by Albert Lepage, the chairman of Lepage Bakeries Inc. The Lewiston baker of County Kitchen bread is a Hebron Academy alumnus, class of 1965.
Lepage has been a regular benefactor to the school for years, said King, who declined to release how much money the businessman has given Hebron.
“He has been very generous,” King said.
On the night of Albee’s visit, Lepage has planned a private reception for Hebron students who are from Androscoggin County. Of the school’s 200 students in grades 9 through 12, 81 live locally.
Lepage, who grew up in Auburn, has a special fondness for the local students, King said. But his gifts have helped the whole school.
In 2001, Lepage paid for the creation of a fitness room in the gymnasium, where there was a simple dirt cage for sports practices. The changes to the theater began soon after the Lepage Wellness Center was complete.
Workers restored the sculpted wooden stage. It had been unusable, with a floor so weak that it was unsafe. Outside, stone and metalwork on the gym’s stairs were repaired or replaced.
On its lawn is a new Lepage-funded sign, the first sight people have of the school as they drive north on Route 119 into Hebron. It serves as a gateway to the 1,500-acre campus, something King says is more important than ever before.
“It’s our front door,” King said. “We’re trying to make a good impression.”
dhartill@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
