Constellation Similarity Assertions

Richard Barr and Clinton Wilder, founders of the Playwright's Unit, along with Edward Albee, were a major force in producing plays by new, talented playwrights during the 1960s and helped to establish Off-Off Broadway as a viable theatrical venue. Their committment to emerging playwrights whose works were outside of the mainstream of Broadway productions allowed them to showcase the early works of playwrights like Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Jean Claude Van Itallie, William Hanley, A.R. Gurney, Terence McNally, Jack Richardson, John Guare and Paul Zindel. Their work garnered them a number of awards including the Vernon Rice Award (1962) for their "Theatre 1961" productions; and Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? received the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award (1963) and the NY Drama Critics' Circle Award (1963). The Margo Jones Award for encouraging new plays and playwrights was awarded to Barr and Wilder in 1965. While both men attended Princeton University, four years apart, they took slightly different paths in their careers.

Richard Barr was born Richard Baer on September 6, 1917 in Washington D.C. He graduated from Princeton in 1938 and began his career as an actor with the Orson Welles-John Housman Mercury Theatre, performing small parts on the stage and the radio, including their production of War of the Worlds . He joined Welles in Hollywood becoming his Executive Assistant on Citizen Kane as well as performing a bit part in the film. He left the company in 1941 and served in the United States Army Air Force (1941-1946) making military training films, eventually becoming head of the motion picture unit, working with Ronald Reagan. In 1947 he returned to Hollywood becoming a dialogue director on several films. During the late 1940s to mid 1950s he made his name primarily as a director both in summer stock companies and in New York. He began producing shows in the late 1950s. Some of his early productions include Hotel Paradiso, Fallen Angels and All in One . In 1960 Barr joined up with H.B. Lutz to form "Theatre 1960" in order to produce experimental plays Off-Broadway including Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape in a double-bill with Albee's The Zoo Story . The following year he joined up with Clinton Wilder to form "Theater 1961". Their first production was the eventual double-bill of Albee's The American Dream and The Death of Bessie Smith .

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