In Memoriam at Silliman College. Albert directed and played Constance who was the 80-year-old translator who was getting things wrong. Howard Stein came to see it and then showed it to Tom Haas (Former Faculty), who decided to direct the play with talented second-year actors. Meryl Streep ’75, HON ’83 played Constance and was hilarious and complex. Robert Brustein ’51,
Gemini. Then Gemini went to Broadway and ran for over five years! He kept writing plays—I especially liked Passione and the playful Gus and Al. (Gus was Gustav Mahler, and Al was, well, Albert.) When in the early 2000s he went back to Philadelphia to live, I didn’t see much of him, but we started to talk on the phone more. When I ripped the tendons above my knee, Albert was very kind and understanding to me. He had had a number of health issues over his life. I invited him to see my Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Lincoln Center. He seemed to really like it and also to enjoy how delightful Sigourney was in her role as Masha. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to come see it. I wish he had written more plays for all of us. I wish I believed in an afterlife—I almost do. And then I could see my mother and father and friends who’ve gone away, including Albert. — Christopher Durang ’74 A longer version of this piece appeared in American Theatre online.
Leon Katz
Dramaturg, Playwright, Teacher Albert Innaurato (left) and Christopher Durang ’74 in 1974. Photo courtesy of Christopher Durang.
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HON ’66 (Former Dean) saw it, and decided to produce it at the Yale Repertory Theatre the following fall, which for a playwriting student was like winning the lottery. The play was now called The Idiots Karamazov. Audiences mostly liked it, but the local reviews were pretty bad. Still Mel Gussow of The New York Times came up to review it, and he loved it. Albert and I were very lucky—a good review in The Times definitely opened doors for both of us. I moved to New York a year after Albert did. We went from daily friends to “we’re still friends but it’s not quite the same.” I wanted to write solo again; and he did too. And Albert would go into negativity a lot or get angry quickly. Although he could still make me laugh. We kept liking each other’s plays. He won Obies for Benno Blimpie and
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Leon Katz (Former Faculty) taught me what a play is. How it is written, how it works onstage, and how it can be cracked open to reveal the zeitgeist. I was one of thousands of students over 60 years who was mesmerized by his wisdom, charmed by his wit, and challenged by his summons to the ideal. For us, he was an inspiring teacher, but he was also playwright and actor, scholar and critic, mentor and muse, godfather of American dramaturgy, champion of the avant-garde, father, friend, and all-around mensch. When he died on January 23, 2017, at 97, in his home in Encino, California, the American theater lost a bit of its better self. Leon was co-chair of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program from 1981 to 1989. He came to New Haven from Pittsburgh, where from 1968 to 1981 he was an