Thomas Babe
Thomas Babe was an American playwright, "one of Joseph Papp's most prolific resident playwrights at the New York Shakespeare Festival," with seven of his plays premiered at the Public Theatre. His work during the mid-1970s and through the 1980s explored many elements of American history and cultural mythology. He was fascinated by the concept of the traditional hero figure—and the reality behind it.
Early life and education
Thomas Babe was born in 1941 in Buffalo, New York, the son of Thomas James and Ruth Ina Babe. He had two sisters, Mimi and Karen. Although he started writing at a young age, Babe did not go into theater until after earning other degrees at Harvard University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa; and Yale University Law School. He was a Marshall Scholar, attending the University of Cambridge in 1963.Career
Babe's works were regularly produced in New York City by Joseph Papp's Public Theater, as well as regional theaters across the country. As noted below, seven of his plays were premiered at the Public Theater, where Babe was a resident playwright. His first major success there was Kid Champion, starring Christopher Walken as a former rock star.In addition to exploring the concept of hero and its mythology, Babe often featured strained family relationships, specifically focusing on fathers and daughters, love and individual rights. These themes come together in Babe's 1977 play, A Prayer for My Daughter, starring Alan Rosenberg and Laurence Luckinbill, and directed by Robert Allan Ackerman. It was described as a "close-quartered, deeply psychological interrogation in a police station", that was "strange and compelling", and "unsuspectingly, delivers swift body punches."
Papp produced a series of his plays in the 1970s and 1980s, including Rebel Women, Taken in Marriage with Meryl Streep, Colleen Dewhurst, Kathleen Quinlan, Elizabeth Wilson and Dixie Carter; and Buried Inside Extra, a newspaper drama starring Hal Holbrook and Sandy Dennis.
Planet Fires, premiered in 1985 in Rochester, New York for the opening of Geva Theatre Center's new theatre. It was set at a campground near Rochester, at the end of the American Civil War, dealing "provocatively with American history and with questions of freedom, choice and loyalty." It featured a newly freed slave and a Union deserter, who encounter in spirit major figures of the day, such as Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. Mel Gussow, theater critic for the New York Times, described it as one of Babe's most striking works since A Prayer for My Daughter.
Personal life
He married Susan Bramhall in 1967, and they had a daughter Charissa before their later divorce. In later life, Babe lived in Darien, Connecticut with his companion Neal Bell, a playwright. Babe died of lung cancer at the age of 59 on December 6, 2000, in a hospice in Stamford, Connecticut. His mother, sisters, and daughter Charissa Pacella survived him.Plays and premiere dates
The Pageant of Awkward Shadows, Harvard College Theater, Cambridge, MA, 1963Kid Champion, Public Theater, New York City, 1974Mojo Candy, Yale Cabaret, New Haven, CT, 1975Rebel Women, Public Theater, 1976'Billy Irish, Manhattan Theater Club, New York City, 1976A Prayer for My Daughter, Public Theater, 1978Great Solo Town, Yale Cabaret, 1977Fathers and Sons, Public Theater, 1978Taken in Marriage, Public Theater, 1979Salt Lake City Skyline, Public Theater, 1980When We Were Very Young, Winter Garden Theatre, New York City, 1980Buried Inside Extra, Public Theater, 1984Planet Fires, Geva Theatre Center, Rochester, NY, 1985Carrying School Children, Theatre for the New City, New York City, 1987Demon Wine, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1987Junk Bonds, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Denver, CO, 1991Great Day In The Morning, South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, CA, 1993, published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc.Screenplays
The Sun Gods, Warner Bros., 1978 The Vacancy, Warner Bros., 1979Kid Champion, Music Fair, Inc., 1979Radio plays
Hot Dogs and Soda Pop, National Public Radio, 1980The Volunteer Fireman, NPR, 1981One For the Record, WNYC's The Radio Stage, 1984Television
- Ryan's Hope, and ''Another World''