Charles Mee
| Charles L. Mee | |
|---|---|
| Born | Charles L. Mee, Jr. September 15, 1938 Evanston, Illinois, USA |
| Occupation | playwright, historian, author |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Spouse | Michi Barall Children: Erin B. Mee (b. 1963) Chaz Mee (b. 1969) Sarah Tolan-Mee (b. 1989) Alice Tolan-Mee (b. 1985) Josephine Barall Mee (b. 2008) Grandchildren: Leila Satyanath-Mee (b. 2000) |
Charles L. Mee (born September 15, 1938) is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts. He is also a professor of theater at Columbia University.
Mee was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1938. He contracted polio at the age of fourteen. His memoir A Nearly Normal Life (1999) tells how that event informed the rest of his life.
After graduating from Harvard University in 1960, Mee moved to Greenwich Village and became a part of the Off-Off-Broadway scene. Between 1962 and 1964, his plays were presented at venues that included La MaMa E.T.C., Caffe Cino, Theatre Genesis, and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.
In 1961 Mee began work at American Heritage publishing company and eventually became the editor of the hardback bi-monthly Horizon: A Magazine of the Arts. He was also the Advising Editor and then Contributing Editor of Tulane Drama Review – now called TDR and published from New York University – until 1964 and its Associate Editor from 1964 to 1965.
To support himself and his family, Mee turned from writing plays to writing books in 1965. Lorenzo De’Medici and the Renaissance, the first of his many nonfiction books, was published in 1969 by HarperCollins Juvenile Books. At the same time, he increasingly became caught up in anti-Vietnam War politics, campaigning for anti-war congressional candidates and writing anti-war polemics. He wouldn't return to writing for the theater for another 20 years.
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