I Never Sang for My Father.

First edition of Robert Anderson’s autobiographical drama, later the basis for the Academy Award–nominated 1970 film. Octavo, original publisher's half cloth, top stain blue, illustrated with black-and-white production photographs. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “Dear Alan, Thank you for guiding this one through the shoals and narrows. It was a beautiful job — Best, Bob. July 12, 1968.” The recipient, Alan Schneider, staged the original Broadway production of I Never Sang for My Father, which opened at the Longacre Theatre on January 25, 1968 with Hal Holbrook, Alan Webb, Lillian Gish, and Teresa Wright. The playwright’s warm tribute to a “beautiful job” affectionately credits Schneider with steering the production “through the shoals and narrows.” Schneider was among the foremost American directors of his generation and the great champion of the postwar stage in the United States: he directed the American premiere of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in 1956 and remained Beckett’s preferred American director, staged the United States premieres of Pinter’s plays from the 1962 off-Broadway double bill of The Dumb Waiter and The Collection through the Broadway premiere of The Birthday Party in 1967, and won the 1963 Tony Award for Best Direction for the original production of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Near fine in a very good dust jacket with a small closed tear to the front and rear panel. Illustrated by Martha Swope and Henri Dauman. An exceptional association copy uniting the playwright and the director of the original Broadway production.