The condition of the theater is always an accurate measure of the cultural health of a nation. A play always exists in the present tense (if it is a valuable one), and its music -- its special noise -- is always contemporary. The most valuable function of the theater as an art form is to tell us who we are, and the health of the theater is determined by how much of that we want to know.

Stretching My Mind: The Collected Essays of Edward Albee (ed. Da Capo Press, 2009) - ISBN: 9780786735815