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I’ve been having throbbing headaches too, frightening because I don’t know what brings them on. So I’ve been beginning to feel the cold wind Time makes as it rushes by. Heeding those warnings, I’ve determined to live what is left of my life on the precipice—that is, recklessly. The word “reckless” …

What I like about this ending is its bittersweet ambivalence, full of what Bill had learned from his own life: that you have to accept limited happiness, because all happiness is limited, and that to expect perfection is the most neurotic thing of all; you must live with the sadness as well as with…

The old lady of the island about to be covered by the man-made lake was played by one of the great character actresses of that day, Jo Van Fleet, aged thirty-seven, as difficult and dear a woman as a director in need of a performance could hope for. I’d worked with Jo in Camino Real and in East of …

So I resigned—my announcement to myself—from the elite club of sought-after Broadway directors, walked away at the peak of my success. By refusing the Williams play, I was, in effect, refusing all other plays by authors of similar stature. I was abdicating from the successful career I’d made. I vow…

Speak now, I said to myself, release your true feelings before it’s too late. Be yourself. Take your place in the world. You are not a cosmic orphan. You have no reason to be timid. Respond as you feel. Awkwardly, crudely, vulgarly—but respond. Leave your throat open. You can have anything the worl…