SOURCE: Peterson, William M. “Lanford Wilson's Classroom.” Confrontation: A Literary Journal of Long Island University, nos. 48-49 (spring-summer 1992): 257-59.

In the following essay, Peterson explicates the pedagogical dimension of Wilson's life and plays.

I first met Lanford Wilson on November 20, 1991, at the Post House Restaurant in Southampton, Long Island. Perhaps I really had met him earlier, for I had read The Mound Builders and The Hot l Baltimore and had seen Talley's Folly and The Fifth of July on Broadway, and a televised adapatation of Lemon Sky on Public Broadcasting System. I knew the work if not the writer. After three meetings with the writer I know I know his work better. At his best, his work provides a mystery of illumination in a prism of speculative shading. As for his persona, he is content to remain an enigma; I suspect he likes to tantalize.

Wilson won a...