Larry Howard Shue (July 23, 1946 – September 23, 1985) was an American
playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
and actor, best known for writing two oft-performed
farce
Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical humor; the use of deliberate absurdity or ...
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
Illinois Wesleyan University
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He served in the United States Army at Fort Lee, Virginia from 1968 to 1972. He then began his career as a professional actor and playwright with the Harlequin Dinner Theatre in both Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. He worked in
repertory
A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation.
United Kingdom
Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawi ...
theater and on the
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
stage, and appeared in television's '' One Life to Live''. Film appearances include the shorts ''A Common Confusion''; ''Another Town''; and ''The Land of the Blind: or The Hungry Leaves''; and the feature-length '' Sweet Liberty''.
As a member of Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Shue played the sailor Joe in the 1980 premiere of ''Lakeboat'' by
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and '' Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...
. Mamet dedicated the play to Shue and the production's director, John Dillon.
Shue married Linda Faye Wilson in 1968; they were divorced in 1977.
Career
Shue's two best-known plays were written and first performed while he was playwright-in-residence at the
Milwaukee Repertory Theater
Milwaukee Repertory Theater ("Milwaukee Rep") is a theater company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded as the Fred Miller Theatre Company, the group is housed in the Patty & Jay Baker Theater Complex, which includes the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, ...
:
*'' The Nerd'' premiered in April 1981, and was produced successfully in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
's
West End
West End most commonly refers to:
* West End of London, an area of central London, England
* West End theatre, a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London, England
West End may also refer to:
Pl ...
. It transferred to
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in 1987. It is a simple character-based comedy, in which a normal dinner party, interrupted by the house-guest from hell, dissolves into insanity.
* ''The Foreigner'' premiered in 1983, and transferred to
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...
. The central character is Charlie Baker, who, while on a vacation in a
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to t ...
hunting lodge, pretends not to be able to understand
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national id ...
, so as to avoid the attentions of the other guests. His plan backfires and he soon finds himself the confidant of everyone there, especially a young man named Ellard, who thinks he is teaching Charlie English. Charlie ends up having to foil the schemes of the local
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Ca ...
chapter without revealing his secret.
His other plays include:
*''Grandma Duck Is Dead'' – about antics in a college
dormitory
A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university ...
*''My Emperor's New Clothes'' – "set in the kingdom of Mango-Chutney, a one-act children's
musical
Musical is the adjective of music
Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact def ...
based on the
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.
Andersen's fairy tales, consist ...
story
Story or stories may refer to:
Common uses
* Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events)
** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting
* Story (American English), or storey (Britis ...
(Shue works in some cross-dressing, as well as a rhyme for "orange")"
*''Wenceslas Square'' – set in 1974
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
after the Soviet invasion of 1968
The off-Broadway production of ''The Foreigner'' resulted in two
Obie
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
awards in 1985, to
Jerry Zaks
Jerry Zaks (born September 7, 1946) is an American stage and television director, and actor. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Drama Desk Award for directing '' The House of Blue Leaves'', ''Lend Me a Tenor'', and '' Six De ...
for direction and
Anthony Heald
Philip Anthony Mair Heald (born August 25, 1944) is an American character actor known for portraying Hannibal Lecter's jailer, Dr. Frederick Chilton, in '' The Silence of the Lambs'' and '' Red Dragon'', and for playing assistant principal Sco ...
for performance. From the
Outer Critics Circle
The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on Broadway and Off-Broadway. They are presented by the Outer Critics Circle (OCC), the official organization of New York theater writers for out-of-town newspa ...
, it received the John Gassner Playwriting Award and the award for Best Off Broadway Play.
Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport
Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport is in Weyers Cave, Virginia, United States, northeast of Staunton. It is used for general aviation and is served by one airline, subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.
The airport is operated by ...
near Weyers Cave, Virginia; all fourteen people on the flight were killed, twelve passengers and two crew. At the time, Shue was preparing for his first big Broadway role, as Reverend Crisparkle in
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a y ...
's ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''.
Among many other eulogies, author Thomas M. Disch said that Shue's death was "fate's cruelest trick on the theater since the murder of
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brie ...
." Also in remembrance, Canadian actor, Jeff Brooks, said, "I knew him, and I saw him play Charlie n the play ''The Foreigner''in New York. Then I played it in New York after him, although we're quite different as actors." Shue played the smaller role of Froggy, and Brooks had something to say about that, as well: "I know damn well he wrote Charlie for himself. As an actor, he was such a cut-up. When I saw him, he was wonderful. I remember thinking a couple of times that he's doing things that if he were the playwright sitting out here, he'd be saying, 'Oh, stop that. Cut that out.' But he was having so much fun inventively in the role."