Robert (Woodruff) Anderson

Born in New York City, 28 April 1917. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1931-35; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1935-42, A.B. (magna cum laude) 1939, M.A. 1940. Served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, 1942-46: lieutenant; Bronze Star. Married 1) Phyllis Stohl in 1940 (died 1956); 2) the actress Teresa Wright in 1959 (divorced 1978). Actor, South Shore Players, Cohasset, Massachusetts, summers 1937 and 1938. Assistant in English, Harvard University, 1939-42; teacher, Erskine School, Boston, 1941; teacher of playwriting, American Theatre Wing, New York, 1946-51, and Actors Studio, New York, 1955-56; member of the faculty, Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, 1968; writer-in-residence, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1969, and University of Iowa Writers Workshop, Iowa City, 1976, Member of the Playwrights Producing Company, 1953-60; president, New Dramatists Committee, 1955-56, and Dramatists Guild, 1971-73; member of the Board of Governors, American Playwrights Theatre, 1963-79. Since 1965 member of the Council, and since 1980 vice-president, Authors League of America. Recipient: National Theatre Conference prize, 1945; Rockefeller fellowship, 1946; Writers Guild of America award, for screenplay, 1970; ACE award, for television, 1991. Member, Theater Hall of Fame, 1980.

Stage Plays

  1. Hour Town, music and lyrics by Anderson (produced 1938).
  2. Come Marching Home (produced 1945).
  3. The Eden Rose (produced 1949).
  4. Sketches in Dance Me a Song (produced 1950).
  5. Love Revisited (produced 1951).
  6. All Summer Long, adaptation of the novel A Wreath and a Curse by Donald Wetzel (produced 1952). 1955.
  7. Tea and Sympathy (produced 1953). 1953.
  8. Silent Night, Lonely Night (produced 1959). 1960.
  9. The Days Between (produced 1965). 1965.
  10. You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (produced 1967). 1967.
  11. I Never Sang for My Father (produced 1967). 1968; screenplay published, 1970.
  12. Solitaire/Double Solitaire (produced 1971). 1972.
  13. Free and Clear (produced 1983).
  14. The Last Act Is a Solo (televised 1991). 1991. 

Screenplays:

  1. Tea and Sympathy, 1956;
  2. Until They Sail, 1957;
  3. The Nun's Story, 1959;
  4. The Sand Pebbles, 1966;
  5. I Never Sang for My Father, 1970.

Radio and Television Plays

David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Vanity Fair, The Glass Menagerie, Trilby, The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, The Petrified Forest, The Scarlet Pimpernel, A Farewell to Arms, Summer and Smoke, Arrowsmith, and other adaptations, 1946-52; The Patricia Neal Story, 1980; The Last Act Is a Solo, 1991; Absolute Strangers, 1991.

Novels

  • After. 1973.
  • Getting Up and Going Home. 1978.

Other Publications

  • Co-editor, Elements of Literature (anthology). 6 vols., 1988.

Critical Studies

  • Life among the Playwrights by John F. Wharton, 1974;
  • Playwrights Talk about Playwriting edited by Lewis Funke, 1975;
  • Robert Anderson by Thomas Adler, 1978;
  • "A Dramatist's Inner Space," in Dramatists Guild Quarterly, Spring 1979;
  • The Strands Entwined by Samuel Bernstein, 1980
  • Represented by Audrey Wood by Audrey Wood and Max Wilk, 1981.