On April 13, 1937, Lanford Wilson was born in Lebanon, Missouri. When he was five years old his parents divorced and his father moved to California; he lived with his mother until 1956.

Wilson attended Southwest Missouri State College (1955-56) and San Diego State College (1956- 57). When he was nineteen, Wilson moved to Chicago. He fell in love with big city life and got a job at an advertising agency doing illustrations.

At that time he began writing plays and enrolled at University of Chicago to learn more about the theater. After he moved to New York in 1962, Wilson became an active participant in the Off-Off Broadway movement.

Several of his early plays were produced at the Caffe Cino or at La Mama Experimental Theatre. These early one-act plays were followed by a succession of full-length works, beginning with Balm in Gilead (1965).

In 1968, Wilson co-founded the Circle Repertory Company...