Broadway Playwright Albert Innaurato Passes Away at 70

BroadwayWorld has just learned that playwright Albert Innaurato passed away earlier this week in Philadelphia. He was 70 years old.

Innaurato was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1947. After graduating from Temple University and California Institute of the Arts, Innaurato attended the Yale School of Drama. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975, a Rockefeller Grant and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986 and 1989.

Innaurato collaborated with Christopher Durang on The Idiots Karamazov, I Don't Normally Like Poetry but Have You Read "Trees"?, and Gyp, the Real-Life Story of Mitzi Gaynor while both were students at Yale University's School of Drama. They performed in all three plays, often as women dressed as priests. At Yale they frequently appeared in plays with their Drama School classmates Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver and their friend, Wendy Wasserstein. I Don't Normally Like Poetry but Have You Read "Trees"? played in 1973 at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

In 1976, he drew critical attention for the Playwrights Horizons staging of his play Gemini. A year later, after some cast changes, the play was produced at PAF Playhouse on Long Island. That production subsequently was presented off-Broadway at the Circle Repertory Company, opening March 8, 1977, where it was acclaimed by the major New York critics. The Circle Rep production transferred to Broadway, where it ran for 1819 performances and earned him an Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New American Play.

In 2006, Innaurato's hit play was turned into a musical, Gemini: The Musical and presented at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, starring Robert Picardo, Linda Hart, Anne DeSalvo, Barry James, Jillian Louis, Jeremiah Downes and Todd Buonopane.

Additional theatre credits include Passione at both Playwrights Horizons (where Innaurato directed) and on Broadway (directed by Frank Langella), Magda and Callas, Coming of Age in Soho (directed by Innaurato twice at Joseph Papp's Public Theater), Gus and Al (given two runs at Playwrights' Horizons), and Dreading Thekla. Early plays still considered obscene and difficult like Earthworms, Urlicht and Wisdom Amok were published with Gemini and Benno Blimpie in a volume titled Bizarre Behavior. Coming of Age in Soho, Gemini, and Benno Blimpieappeared in a collection called The Best Plays of Albert Innaurato.

Innaurato's television credits include The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd and Verna: USO Girl, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. He was a frequent contributor of short plays to PBS in the 1980s, including the Trying Times episode "Death and Taxes", starring Sally Kellerman.

Innaurato was Artistic Director of Creative Development Projects at Center City Opera Theater in Philadelphia. He contributed to the development as dramaturg and director of workshops of new operas such as Paul's Case by Gregory Spears, Love/Hate by Rob Bailis and Jack Perla, Slaying the Dragon by Michael Ching, The Great Blondin by Ronald Vigue to which he contributed the libretto, and other works.