Plays
About
George Cadogan Gardner McKay (1932-2001) was born in Manhattan, New York City. His early years were spent in France, Connecticut, and Kentucky. At age fifteen, he published his first story. He attended Cornell University where he edited the humor magazine, wrote a film review column for the paper, and was briefly president of his class. He rowed on their crew. He has been awarded several prizes for his writing, including The Drama Critics Award for playwriting and the Sydney Carrington Prize. He won three National Endowment for the Arts grants for playwriting. Five of his play have been published by Samuel French: Sea Marks (National Regional Theatre Award, Canada; Drama Critics Circl Award, Best Play; Manhattan Theatre Club; Players Theatre); Masters of the Sea; Toyer (Kennedy Center, DC; Redgrave Theatre, UK; The Arts Theatre, West End); Untold Damage; and In Order of Appearance. Mr. McKay’s plays have been, and continue to be, produced in every state in the union and internationally. Sea Marks has also been broadcast on B.B.C. Radio Theatre, London. Mr. McKay’s play Untold Damage, written and directed by McKay for PBS, was cited as the best television production by Television Theatre. Mr. McKay was Drama critic and Drama editor for the Los Angeles Herald Tribune. During the time he was with the Herald he invented a method of review called the “Triple Review:’ Three brief reviews of the same play by three writers. Mr. McKay taught playwriting at UCLA at his Playwriting Roundtable. Later he taught playwriting and screenwriting at USC; in Juneau, Alaska; and at the University of Hawaii. Mr. McKay’s novels include Toyer (currently in pre-production for a major motion film), Journey Without a Map (autobiography), The Kinsman, The Last American, 10 Bloomsbury Square, and Trompe L’Oeil. From 1995, until his death in November 2001,Mr. McKay wrote and recorded stories for his weekly radio show Stories on the Wind which aired on Hawaii Public Radio each Sunday night.