Virginia Woolf playwright Edward Albee dies at 88

Acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, perhaps best known for Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?, died Friday at his home in Montauk, New York. He was 88 years old.

Hailed by many as the most significant playwright of his generation, Albee debuted on Broadway with Virginia Woolf in 1962, winning a Tony Award for best play and a film adaptation. He continued writing well into his later years.

"Mr. Albee has unsparingly considered subjects outside the average theatergoer's comfort zone," wrote The New York Times' Ben Brantley, "the capacity for sadism and violence within American society; the fluidness of human identity; the dangerous irrationality of sexual attraction and, always, the irrefutable presence of death."

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Of his own work, Albee said, "You know, if anybody wants me to say it, in one sentence, what my plays are about: They're about the nature of identity: who we are, how we permit ourselves to be viewed, how we permit ourselves to view ourselves, how we practice identity or lack of identity."