Edward Albee, Founder

Edward Albee was born on March 12, 1928, and began writing plays 30 years later.

His plays include: The Zoo Story (1958), The American Dream (1960), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961-62, Tony Award), Tiny Alice (1964), A Delicate Balance (1966, Pulitzer Prize; 1996, Tony Award), All Over (1971), Seascape (1974, Pulitzer Prize), The Lady From Dubuque (1977-78), The Man Who Had Three Arms (1981), Finding The Sun (1982), Marriage Play (1986-87), Three Tall Women (1991, Pulitzer Prize), Fragments (1993), The Play About The Baby (1997), The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2000, 2002 Tony Award), Occupant (2001), Peter and Jerry: Act1, Homelife; Act 2, The Zoo Story (2004), and Me, Myself and I (2007).

He was awarded the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1980, and in 1996 received the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts. In 2005 he was awarded a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.
 PicturePhoto by Michael Childers, 2012
To read the original press release on
Edward Albee's passing, please click here

To read Edward Albee's obituary
in the NY Times, please click here

Jakob Holder, Executive Director

Jakob Holder was Edward Albee's longest serving personal assistant, from 2001 to the latter's passing in 2016.  He served as the Foundation's Executive Secretary from 2001 through 2013 and was then graduated into the Executive Director role he continues to occupy today.  A playwright himself, he was drawn as much to the complexity of Albee's work as his straightforward views on the fundamental obligations all creative people should adhere to as regards both their own unfettered  expression as well as that of their similarly afflicted peers.  Art can't exist within a vacuum, and artists can't grow within a silo; and Holder is is grateful that the Albee Foundation is willing to do whatever it can to create and sustain an environment for all creative people to explore their minds, stretch their imaginations, and express the hell out of themselves without succumbing to the immolation of censoriousness, whether internally driven or externally imposed.  Ars longa, vita brevis, so don't waste your or anyone else's tempus.
For the Edward Albee Unified Arts Center
Krissy Bylancik, Managing Director

Krissy Bylancik is a dramaturg and collaborative theatre administrator based in New York City. She spent her first 5 years out of school in the Theatre Department at William Morris Endeavor. Beginning as an agent’s assistant, she worked her way into the Theater Agent Trainee program where she engaged with and pursued emerging talent as an extension of the Theater Department before working independently to take on clients of her own. Before WME, she worked in literary and artistic offices at nonprofit theater organizations across the country, including Manhattan Theatre Club, City Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Theater, and the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Over her time with these organizations, she helped emerging and established playwrights develop their plays, organized community engagement efforts, and read countless play submissions. She holds a BFA in Dramaturgy from Carnegie Mellon University.
For the William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center

Rex Lau, Facilities Manager/Caretaker

Since the late 70s, Rex Lau has had 23 solo exhibitions.  His paintings and works on paper have been widely exhibited in the United States, and have been shown in Germany, Italy, and Israel. His work has been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City. His work is in the permanent collections of seventeen significant U. S. museums, Including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NYC), Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Critics who have written essays on his work include Stephen Westfall, Donald Kuspit, Amei Wallach, Phyllis Braff and Gerrit Henry. His most recent exhibition was at The Drawing Room in East Hampton, New York. Rex has overseen The Barn since 1980 and lives in Montauk year-round.

Diane Mayo, Caretaker (1948-2021)

We lost our dear friend Diane in the winter of 2021.
To read more about this, please click here.

Her original bio for this site remains below.

Since the early 1980s Diane Mayo has had seventeen solo exhibitions. Ms Mayo’s ceramic work has been widely exhibited in the United States in recent years and was shown in Germany in 1994. The noted art critic and author Rose C. S. Slivka has written “Diane Mayo is in a class by herself as a potter, making uncanny habitats for a world of birds, beasts, fish and creatures of her imagination. Hand-rolled from slabs, they are without a doubt among the most original pottery forms we have seen anywhere.” Other critics who have written essays on her work include Phyllis Braff, Gerrit Henry and Amei Wallach. Diane has assisted in day to day operations of The Barn since 1980 and lives in Montauk year-round.