Terry was asked by Marshall Mason to speak at the Memorial Celebration of the Life and Works of Lanford Wilson on May 16th at the Lyceum Theater here in NY. Below is a transcript of his speech. nnOne of the great qualities of Lanford Wilson was his generosity. That same generosity manifested itself in all his plays with compassion for humanity equal to that of Chekhov or Tennessee Williams.nnI first encountered Lanford Wilson in the 1970’s when we did Lemon Sky. I asked if he would come in and read it for the cast so they could hear the rhythms from his own mouth. He said, “yes, I would consider doing that but it’s a very personal play and I might hyperventilate and have to lie down on the floor.” I assured him that if this was the case, we would give him all the floor space that he needed. The reading went extremely well and was of tremendous value to all of us. And Lanford did not hyperventilate. Afterwards, he and I went out for more than several glasses of red wine and closed the bar at 4 a.m. We had discussed just about everything, including his love of the NY Mets- which really demonstrated his compassion.
Lanford with Terry, Peter, and the cast of Fifth of July.
Over the years, we did a lot of Lanford’s one-acts and a production of Hot L Baltimore. But focusing on the last couple of years, we did Fifth of July in which Lanford was willing to come in and spend time talking to the cast and telling his wonderful stories. He was my guest on opening night and turned to me half way through the production and said, “you can do anything of mine- anytime.” It was a great compliment to Peter Jensen, who directed the play, the cast, and certainly the studio. There’s nothing greater to me than to hear directly from the playwright that we served his play. It’s a richer reward than even a rave review in the NY Times. Lanford stayed that evening after the play and spoke to the cast in laudatory terms and even went to the cast party. This past fall we did Balm in Gilead, again directed by Peter Jensen. It was to be the last production that Lanford saw of one of his plays. Again, he stayed and talked to the cast at great lengths about their performances, prefacing his talk by telling us all “you got it exactly right”.nnI’d like to close with some lines from Balm In Gilead. A character called Darlene is sitting at a table at the end of the play and says “And I don’t know. Everyone was so tired and so down, and I thought, Christ, aren’t we even moving? You know?”nnWell, Lanford, you’re moving but you’ll be with all of us forever and for generations to come. I’d prefer to think and feel you just got a little tired. Thank you, Lanford.