Frank D. Gilroy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of The Subject Was Roses (1964), has a new volume of plays in bookstores, from Smith and Kraus. "Frank D. Gilroy: Complete Full-Length Plays 1962-1999," features author introductions to each play in what is "Volume I" of a two-book release, along with "Frank D. Gilroy: 15 One-Act Plays."
The full-length works in the 373-page "Volume I" include Who'll Save the Plowboy? (1962), The Subject Was Roses (1964), That Summer -- That Fall (1966), The Only Game in Town (1969), Last Licks (1979), Any Given Day (1993) and Contact With the Enemy (1999).
Gilroy earned the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Drama Critics Circle Award for The Subject Was Roses. The play was revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company in 1991. Patricia Neal, and Jack Albertson starred in the film version.
Gilroy was born and raised in the Bronx, NY, and educated at Dartmouth College and Yale Drama School. He is a screenwriter and novelist, and a past president of the Dramatist's Guild.
His most famous play, The Subject Was Roses, concerned a vet returning from war and uneasily facing his demons and his parents.
Contact With the Enemy, from the 1999-2000 Off Broadway season, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Play. It concerns the meeting of war buddies at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, 50 years after they liberated a concentration camp.
-- By Kenneth Jones
