Lane A. Glenn has a Ph. D. specializing in theater history and literature. In this essay he considers Athol Fugard's exploration of what it means to be an artist in Valley Song.

At an early age, Athol Fugard knew he would one day be an artist. In a 1989 interview with director Lloyd Richards in the Paris Review, Fugard remembered the importance of music and storytelling in his family. His father was a jazz musician, as well as an avid reader and storyteller, and Fugard recalled dreaming about becoming a composer or concert pianist and writing short stories of his own as a boy. "By eighteen, by the time I went to university, I knew that somehow my life was going to be about putting words on paper," he told Richards.

After trying his hand at poetry and considering a novel, Fugard found his calling in the theater...