Ron Whyte

Ronald Melville Whyte (1941–1989) was an American playwright, critic, and disability rights activist.

Whyte was born November 18, 1941 in Black Eagle, Montana to Eva Ranieri, a homemaker and Henry Melville Whyte, a railroad machinist. The family moved to Great Falls, Montana and later to St. Paul, Minnesota, where Whyte attended University of Minnesota High School, studying with Arthur H. Ballet, among others. Whyte completed his studies in Spokane, Washington, where the family moved as his father held a series of increasingly responsible positions with the Great Northern Railroad.As a young man, Whyte was a regular contributor to the "Baum Bugle" of L. Frank Baum scholarship and the "Baker Street Journal" ("an irregular quarterly of Sherlockiana," and the journal of the Baker Street Irregulars), among other publications.

After graduating from high school, Whyte attended Whitworth College in Spokane for one year, then transferred to San Francisco State University, where he studied drama. Among his professors was Kay Boyle. After receiving his B.A., he was accepted for graduate study at the Yale School of Drama, from which he received the M.F.A. degree in 1967. His professors at Yale included the Dean, Robert Brustein, theatre historian John Gassner, film and theatre critic Stanley Kauffmann, critic Harold Clurman, with whom he later worked at The Actors Studio in New York, Stella Adler, and others. He subsequently enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, from which received the Master of Divinity degree in 1976. At Union, his mentor was the founder of Black Liberation Theology, the Rev. Dr. James H. Cone. He was a member of The Riverside Church in the City of New York during the ministry of the Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin and in care for ordination as a minister in the United Church of Christ.

Whyte's life was informed by, if not defined by, physical disability. Born with congenital birth defects of both legs and one arm, as a child he was put in leg braces built by his father and walked with the help of these devices, since his legs did not have the strength to support him otherwise. Run over by a schoolbus in an accident while he was in high school, both of his ankles were crushed, furthering his disabilities. By the time he was at the end of his college years in San Francisco, he opted to have then-experimental surgery to have both legs amputated below the knees and after a period of recovery, began wearing the prosthetic legs that he would wear for the rest of his life.

Whyte developed as a playwright while in San Francisco, writing the first of over a hundred playscripts and screenplays that form the body of his work. While at the Yale School of Drama, he wrote the first of many works that would see commercial production. "Welcome To Andromeda", a one-act play for two characters written in 1968, was produced in workshop in 1969 at The American Place Theatre in New York before going on to a commercial Off-Broadway production at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 1973. (See Lucille Lortel Archives for credits for opening night [http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=3251] . It received numerous positive reviews and was named one the Ten Best Plays of 1973 by Time Magazine "The hero was almost totally paralyzed, but Ron Whyte's first play quivered with instinctual dramatic life." [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910923,00.html] . David Richards, theatre critic for the "Washington Star ("and later for The New York Times) called Whyte "the most original dramatic voice since Edward Albee." "Welcome To Andromeda" received subsequent productions in scores of theatres around the country and the world including Postus-Teatret in Copenhagen, Denmark, and The Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1975, among many others. Published in an acting edition by Samuel French, it continues to be performed by professional and amateur groups worldwide every year.

Whyte's first major theatrical production was the play-with-music or musical "Horatio", based on the life and stories of Horatio Alger, with music by Broadway composer Mel Marvin. Horatio received productions at the Loretto-Hilton Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, 1970; Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., 1974, and the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, 1976.

Another major production was the autobiographical play-with-music "Funeral March for a One-Man Band", with earlier versions including the title "X: Notes on a Personal Mythology". Funeral March received its first Off-Broadway production at Westbeth Theatre Center in New York in 1978 and subsequent productions at the St. Nicholas Theatre in Chicago in 1979 and 1981. The 1979 Chicago production received four Joseph Jefferson Awards including Best Musical Production. The play had music again by Mel Marvin and was conceived in collaboration with H. Thomas Moore (Tom Moore) [http://www.filmreference.com/film/3/Tom-Moore.html] , who went on to fame as the director of the musical "Grease" on Broadway as well as many other theatrical and television productions.

Another play of note was an adaptation of Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), produced first at the American Festival Theatre in Milford, New Hampshire in 1979 and subsequently expanded in a production at Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival (The Public Theatre) in 1981. Mr. Papp commissioned a further expanded version of the play that was never produced.

While serving both as Playwright-in-Residence as well as Coordinator of the historic Playwrights and Directors Unit (established by Clifford Odets) at The Actors Studio working directly with Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, Whyte organized a 1981 Festival of New Plays that included first productions of works by such noted playwrights as Ishmael Reed, John Ford Noonan, John Guare, and Christopher Durang, among others. Whyte left The Actors Studio following the death of Strasberg and leadership of the Playwrights and Directors Unit was taken over by Elia Kazan and Arthur Penn.

While at The Actors Studio, Whyte wrote a second act for Welcome To Andromeda and the now two-act play was premiered with Ellen Burstyn in the role of the Nurse in a limited-run, standing-room-only production at the Studio. The two-act version was titled "Andromeda II". Whyte wrote a third act later, "Andromeda III", that has not yet been performed.

Perhaps Whyte's most significant work was the two-act play, "Disability: A Comedy". Drawing on Whyte's own experience as a disabled person, the play told the story of a young quadriplegic man, Larry, trapped at home in a Manhattan apartment with his parents, who takes out a personal ad to meet a young woman. The events that transpire when the young woman, Jayne, arrives at his door, are both dramatic and darkly comedic. Whyte himself dedicated the play to Sir Alfred Hitchcock and the end has a Hitchcockian twist that continues provoke intense audience response. "Disability" was first performed in workshop at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. in the Old Vat Room as a workshop in 1979 and in full production in Arena's Kreeger Theatre in 1982. Subsequent productions followed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the Odyssey Theatre, also in Los Angeles, where the play received a Drama-Logue Award for Best Play. "Disability" has was performed at the Actors Theatre of St. Paul, for which production the play was nominated for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. In 1990, it was produced at the Detroit Repertory Company. Most recently, "Disability" was produced in 2003 at Frank Condon's River Stage in Sacramento, California, where the Sacramento Bee wrote: "... amazing ... excellent ... Rarely does a play energize, stimulate--and surprise--the way DISABILITY does." [http://www.riverstage.org/reviews03_04.htm]

As a screenwriter, Whyte wrote three films that received commercial theatrical release: "Valentine Eve" (1967); "The Happiness Cage" (later retitled "The Mind Snatchers") (1972), directed by Bernard Girard; and Pigeons (Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker) (1970), directed by John Dexter. He also wrote teleplays for several programs including "Look Up and Live" on CBS-TV and the syndicated series "Tales from the Dark Side".

As an editor and writer, Whyte served as Arts Editor and Book Review Editor of "The SoHo Weekly News" in New York; Drama Editor of The American Book Review; and a book reviewer for many other publications. His books included "The Flower That Finally Grew" (New York: Crown Publishers, 1971); "Welcome To Andromeda and Variety Obit" (New York: Samuel French and Co., 1973), and "Disability: A Comedy" (New York: Theatre Development Fund, 1983). With the late art critic Gregory Battcock and Paul William Bradley he coauthored a textbook on cinema history entitled "The Story of Film" (1979), contracted with E.P. Dutton but unpublished.

While a student at Yale School of Drama, Whyte worked as a writer in the 1960s for [Marvel Comics] , authoring stories in Marvel's Western comic books including "Rawhide Kid", "Two-Gun Kid", and "Kid Colt". A comic-book character created by Whyte at Yale, "Method Man," was the subject of a graphic issue of 1967 "Yale Drama Review". Whyte also wrote for the magazines "Creepy" and "Eerie" in the 1960s. ( [http://www.bailsprojects.com/(S(ukui2u3jm5fttr45eswkihf0))/whoswho.aspx?mode=AtoZsearch&id=WHYTE%2C+RON] ) Whyte compiled his experiences as an author during the Golden Age of Marvel into a book, contracted with St. Martin's Press but never completed before his death.

Whyte's work as a disability rights activist led him to found The National Task Force for Disability and the Arts in 1978 and brought him in advisory capacities onto boards and committees including the New York State Council on the Arts, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. He visited with and spoke to disabled young people and adults in residential centers, provided counseling and mentoring to disabled artists, and was interviewed regularly about both his art and his disability activism. His activism was had a downside in that he developed an unwarranted reputation for demanding accessibility at the theatres where his

Whyte received many honors and awards in his lifetime, including several Sam Shubert Fellowships while at the Yale School of Drama; a Rockefeller Foundation Playwrights Fellowship in 1981; TIME Magazine Ten Best Plays listing in 1973; the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Musical in Chicago in 1979; and nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1983, and the Drama-Logue Award for Best Play in Los Angeles in both 1978 and 1989.

Whyte died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1989 after going into a decline for several years after having an ill-fitting pair of prosthetic legs built that damaged his circulatory system and brought him into a state of constant pain during the last years of his life--during which he nonetheless continued to write prolifically, creating five or ten new play scripts each year up to the last months of his life. This last half decade of Whyte's life can best be described as tragic, as his health deteriorated even while he saw a number of new productions of his work--including one of "Disability: A Comedy" that opened at the time of his death. Much time in his last years was spent consulting with physicians and attempting to have problems with his prostheses remedied, but to no avail. The week before his death, he received an inquiry call from a representative of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" awards committee; it will never be known how that process might have developed. He died on September 13, 1989 while summering in the home of Rep. Paula Elliott Bradley and Dr. William Lee Bradley in New Haven, father and mother of his longtime partner. He was buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in his beloved New Haven, directly adjacent to the graves of such quinessentially American figures as Lyman Beecher, Noah Webster, and Eli Whitney.

Whyte's life partner, the Paul William Bradley, a minister and seminary administrator, survived him and continues to manage his estate and ongoing productions of his plays and other literary enterprises. Whyte's archives and papers are in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University [http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/MSS_PreliminaryLists/WHYTE.HTM] in New Haven, Connecticut. Whyte's library of 5,000 drama and theatre books was donated after his death primarily to The New School's library in New York City, as well as several hundred items to the Esther Raushenbush Library( [http://www.slc.edu/library/] ) at Sarah Lawrence College. Several hundred non-theatre-related items from Whyte's collection are held by the General Research Division of The New York Public Library in New York City. The manuscript of The Story of Film is held by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art ( [http://www.aaa.si.edu/] ) of the Smithsonian Institution in New York City in its Gregory Battcock Papers ("Gregory Battcock," [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/collections_list.cfm/search_letter/B] ).

References

*"Ron Whyte, 47, Dead; Playwright of Disabled," "The New York Times", September 19, 1989. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3D6173FF93AA2575AC0A96F948260]
*"Ron Whyte Screenwriter, Biography," [http://movies.nytimes.com/person/166059/Ron-Whyte/biography] .
* Kalem, T.E., "Dolphin in the Dark: Welcome to Andromeda and Variety Obit," "TIME", February 26, 1973, [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910586,00.html?promoid=googlep]
* Whyte, Ron. "Disability: A Comedy". New York: Theatre Development Fund, 1983.
* Whyte, Ron. "The Flower That Finally Grew". New York: Crown Publishers, 1970.
* Whyte, Ron. "Welcome To Andromeda and Variety Obit". New York: Samuel French & Co., 1973. Catalogue copy at [http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/3427]
* Whyte, Ron. "Welcome to Andromeda," The Best Short Plays of 1974, edited by Stanley Richards. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1975.
* Whyte, Ron. "Exeunt Dying: Theatrical Mysteries." "Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader's Companion," edited by Dilys Winn. Workman Publishing, 1977.
* "Ron Whyte." A Guide to Arena Stage Historical Documents 1950-1998, Repository: Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University. [http://www.aladin.wrlc.org/gsdl/collect/faids/import/ENvifgm00009.shtml]
* Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Collection of American Literature, Preliminary List, Ron Whyte Papers, Uncat MSS 718.
* [http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/MSS_PreliminaryLists/WHYTE.HTM]