Edward Franklin Albee III (pronounced /ˈɔːlbiː/ AWL-bee; born March 12, 1928) is an American playwright best known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and The American Dream. His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco.

Younger American playwrights, such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue with helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Albee continues to experiment in new works, such as The Goat: or, Who Is Sylvia?(2002).

According to Magill's Survey of American Literature (2007), Edward Albee was born somewhere in Virginia (contrary to the popular belief that he was born in Washington, D.C.). He was adopted two weeks later and taken to Larchmont, New York in Westchester County, where he grew up. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters.

Here the young Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child. His adoptive mother, Reed's third wife, Frances tried to raise Albee to fit into their social circles. Albee attended the Rye Country Day School in New York, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, from which he was expelled.

He then was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1945 at the age of 17. He enrolled in the graduate studies program at Choate prep school in Connecticut, graduating in 1946. His formal education continued at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel.

In response to his expulsion, Albee's play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is believed to be based on his experiences at Trinity College.

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