Megan Terry
| Megan Terry | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Marguerite Duffy July 22, 1932 Seattle, Washington |
| Education |
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| Occupation | Playwright |
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Megan Terry (born July 22, 1932) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist having produced more than 50 discrete works for theatre, radio, and television. She is perhaps best known for her avant-garde theatrical work from the 1960s where, as a founding member of New York City's The Open Theater, she developed an actor-training and character-creation technique known as "transformation" that she used to create her 1966 work, Viet Rock, the first rock musical and the first play to address the War in Vietnam.
Terry was born Marguerite Duffy, a child of Harold Joseph, a businessman, and his wife Marguerite (née Henry). She first showed an interest in the theatre after attending a play at the age of seven, "I went and I looked at the stage and I fell madly in love," she wrote. "I knew I wanted to do that, whatever it was." As a child, she would write, direct, and design sets for theatrical productions staged in the backyard of her family's home, earning her the nicknames "Tallulah Blackhead" and "Sarah Heartburn" from her father, who was less than thrilled about her enthusiasm for a theatrical career. After many years of participating in school theatricals, Terry became a member of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse during her senior year in high school. The liberal politics and activist attitudes of the company's directors, Florence and Burton James, had a pronounced effect on Terry's view of theatre in society, and she has credited their influence as well as the 1951 closure of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse under pressure from the House Un-American Activities Committee, for her later use of biting political commentary on stage.
Terry went on to earn a scholarship to the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada, where she received certificates in theatre directing, design, and acting. While there, she took psychology and sociology courses at the University of Alberta and served as technical director for the Edmonton Children's Theater, where she became interested in theatre as a tool for youth education. Mid way through her degree program, however, Terry was forced to return to Seattle when her grandfather became seriously ill. She finished her degree at the University of Washington, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Education degree in 1952. After graduation, she decided to focus on creative dramatics for children and found work teaching at Seattle's oldest performance conservatory, the Cornish School of Allied Arts, in addition to organizing her first acting troupe, the Cornish Players. Terry was also occupied in writing a series of controversial short plays for youth that dealt frankly with issues such as sex and politics. It was at this time that she first adopted a professional pseudonym to shield her professional career as a playwright from the denunciation of her more conservative academic colleagues. She chose the name Megan because it was the Celtic root for Marguerite, and "Terry" in homage to the nineteenth-century actress Ellen Terry.
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