Audrey Violet Wood (February 28, 1905 December 27, 1985)Mitgang, Herbert

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. January 16, 1986. B11. Retrieved November 26, 2013. was an American literary and theatrical agent. Wood was influential in the careers of several of the most recognized dramatic playwrights of the mid-20th century, including

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thr ...

William Inge William Motter Inge (; May 3, 1913 – June 10, 1973) was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s he had a string of memorable Broad ...

, Robert Anderson and

Arthur Kopit Arthur Lee Kopit (' Koenig; May 10, 1937 – April 2, 2021) was an American playwright. He was a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for '' Indians'' and '' Wings''. He was also nominated for three Tony Awards: Best Play for ''Indians'' (1970) a ...

.Wood, Audrey, and

Max Wilk Max Wilk (July 3, 1920 – February 19, 2011) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author of fiction and nonfiction books. In all, Wilk was the author of 19 books, four films, three produced plays as well as many TV shows and magazine ar ...

. ''Represented by Audrey Wood.''

Garden City, New York Garden City is a village located on Long Island in Nassau County New York. It is the Greater Garden City area's anchor community. The population was 23,272 at the 2020 census. The Incorporated Village of Garden City is primarily located within ...

: Doubleday, 1981. .

Career

Wood's agency, Liebling-Wood, Inc. opened its doors at

30 Rockefeller Plaza 30 Rockefeller Plaza (officially the Comcast Building; formerly RCA Building and GE Building) is a skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1933, the 66-s ...

on April 23, 1937, in partnership with her husband, William Liebling. Wood's clients were chiefly playwrights, while Liebling was known for his list of actors; both partners established strong reputations for representing artists in their respective fields who rose to prominence on the stage and screen.

Tennessee Williams

One of Wood's early clients was

who produced many of his most well-regarded stage plays while represented by Wood. In 1939, Wood helped Williams obtain a $1,000 grant from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropy, philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, aft ...

in recognition of his play '' Battle of Angels'' (1940). Based on their correspondence, scholar Albert J. Devlin has characterized Wood as Williams' "primary and most trusted reader for at least the first two decades of their association." Williams apparently blamed Wood for discouraging or censoring him in some cases, for instance in the early drafts of '' Camino Real'' (1953), but scholars seem to agree the realities were more nuanced than one might conclude relying on only the representations in Williams' part of the correspondence or on Wood's responses.Devlin, Albert J
"The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams: Prospects for Research."
''www.archive.org.'' Retrieved April 5, 2017. (Essay discusses Williams' probable

hyperbole Hyperbole (; adj. hyperbolic ) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (literally 'growth'). In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and ...

in complaining about Wood's "interference.")

Works promoted by Wood

A partial listing of plays, movies and other properties Wood was associated with:

Death

Wood suffered a

stroke A stroke is a disease, medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemorr ...

on April 30, 1981, outside the

Royalton Hotel The Royalton Hotel is a hotel at 44 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The hotel, opened in 1898, was designed by architecture firm Rossiter & Wright and developed by civil engineer Edward G. Bailey. The 13-s ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, where she had lived since the 1930s. She remained in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

until her death on December 27, 1985.Mitgang, Herbert
"Audrey Wood is Dead: A Leading Theatrical Agent."

, Decemter 29, 1985. ''www.nytimes.com.'' Retrieved July 24, 2015.Barranger, Milly
Audrey Wood and the Playwrights.

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 * '' ...

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

. . Retrieved September 22, 2017.

Legacy

The Audrey Wood Scholarship was established in 1983 by friends of Miss Wood, and is awarded to students in the Playwriting department of

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

."School of Drama 2015-2016: Fellowships and Scholarships."
''Yale University Bulletin.'' www.yale.edu. Retrieved September 22, 2015. In 1984, a 199-seat section of the Jack Lawrence Theater was renamed the Audrey Wood Theater in her honor. Management had apparently wanted to name the space for Tennessee Williams, an attempt that was disputed by the Williams estate. Jack Lawrence sold the entire theater to a developer in 1987, after struggling to compete with other

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 ...

venues."Theater Is Dedicated to Audrey Wood, Agent."
''

''. October 23, 1984. Retrieved September 28, 2013. In 1990

released ''Mr. Williams and Miss Woods: A Two Character Play'', as a tribute to the thirty-year relationship between the playwright and his agent. The two-act play was adapted from ''Represented by Audrey Wood'', a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

which Wilk co-wrote with Wood.Wilk, Max
''Mr. Williams and Miss Woods.''

Dramatists Play Service Dramatists Play Service (also known as The Play Service) is a theatrical-publishing and licensing house, established in 1936 by members of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Society for Authors' Representatives. DPS publishes English-language ...

, 1990.

. . Retrieved June 26, 2007. Wilk's play has been staged several times over the years, most recently by the Ashland Contemporary Theatre of

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 ...

, in 2014.Decker, Angela
"Mr. Williams and Miss Wood."
''

Ashland Daily Tidings The ''Ashland Daily Tidings'' was a morning newspaper serving the city of Ashland, Oregon, United States. It was owned by Rosebud Media, like its sister publication, the Medford-based '' Mail Tribune,'' which has continued to publish. The ''Da ...

''. June 25, 2014. Retrieved June 26, 2014."Mr. Williams and Miss Wood."
''www.ashlandcontemporarytheatre.org''. Retrieved June 26, 2014.Keefe, Rosemary

''www.talkinbroadway.com''. Retrieved April 9, 2015. Audrey Wood's papers are held at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

of the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, along with the papers of Tennessee Williams. Wood's collection includes

playbill ''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's p ...

scripts Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

, musical scores, photographs, correspondence and the business records of the Liebling-Wood Agency.McKinney, Kelsey
"Fellows Fine: Audrey Wood Collection Reveals Relationship Between the Literary Agent and the Playwrights She Represented."
''Cultural Compass: Harry Ransom Center.'' Retrieved April 12, 2015."Audrey Wood: An Inventory of Her Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center."
''www.hrc.utexas.edu''. Retrieved April 22, 2015.

References

External links

Audrey Wood Collection
at the

Audrey Wood interview on "This Is Broadway"
*
The Tennessee Williams Annual Review
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Audrey Place of death missing 1905 births 1985 deaths Literary agents People from Manhattan