Maryat Lee's EcoTheater

Although perhaps best known now for her long friendship and correspondence with the writer Flannery O'Connor, Maryat Lee (1923-1989) was a highly regarded playwright, first in New York City and later in Appalachia, where she created EcoTheater. In both cases she used non-professional performers and events and people from their own lives to create a fresh and enthralling sense of story. As she wrote in the magazine that eventually became Whole Earth Review, "The words 'acting' and 'actor' have an association with pretension for most people outside the theater. I want something different. I just want people simply, and not so simply, to be themselves." Her plays evolved from the real lives of junkies (Dope!), gay urban life when it wasn't mentioned in public (After the Fashion Show), and the legend of John Henry--with a female lead. From the Soul and Latin Theater of Harlem in the 1950's to remote West Virginia in the 70's and 80's, her passion for immediacy and real connection in theater shine through Professor Bill French's book.