Albert Innaurato

Albert Francis Innaurato Jr. (June 2, 1947 – September 24, 2017) was an American playwright, theatre director, and writer.

Innaurato was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1947. After graduating from the prestigious Central High School Class 224, Temple University and California Institute of the Arts, Innaurato attended the Yale School of Drama. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975, a Rockefeller Grant^{[citation needed]} and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986 and 1989.^{[citation needed]}

Innaurato collaborated with Christopher Durang on The Idiots Karamazov, I Don't Normally Like Poetry but Have You Read "Trees"?, and Gyp, the Real-Life Story of Mitzi Gaynor while both were students at Yale School of Drama. They performed in all three plays, often as women dressed as priests. At Yale, they frequently appeared in plays with classmates Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver and their friend Wendy Wasserstein. I Don't Normally Like Poetry but Have You Read "Trees"? played in 1973 at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

In 1976, he drew critical attention for the Playwrights Horizons staging of his play Gemini. A year later, after some cast changes, the play was produced at PAF Playhouse on Long Island. That production subsequently was presented off-Broadway at the Circle Repertory Company, opening March 8, 1977, where it was acclaimed by the major New York critics. The Circle Rep production transferred to Broadway, where it ran for 1819 performances and earned him an Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New American Play. The screen adaptation, which Innaurato did not write, was released in 1980 under the title Happy Birthday, Gemini. Showtime created a "staged for video" version for cable television in 1982, starring Danny Aiello (Fran), Anne De Salvo (Lucille), and Scott Baio (Francis).

Gemini was controversial in its time for its frankness about and advocacy of tolerance for homosexuality. It also addresses the difficulties of the acculturation process, and the tensions caused by the different perspectives and values of second and third generation Americans as the hero, a Harvard student, attempts to navigate between American and Italian-American culture.

In 2006, Innaurato's hit play was turned into a musical, Gemini: The Musical and presented at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, starring Robert Picardo, Linda Hart, Anne De Salvo, Barry James, Jillian Louis, Jeremiah Downes and Todd Buonopane.

The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie, which earned Innaurato another Obie and a second Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding New American Play, has been produced twice off-Broadway. A production Innaurato directed at Playwrights' Horizons starring Peter Evans won a rave from critic Frank Rich. It was staged in London, where Innaurato directed, Italy, Spain, and Israel.

The 1977 play Ulysses in Traction opened at the Circle Repertory Company in New York.