Douglas Whaley

    Edward Albee When I retired from fulltime law teaching at Ohio State in 2004 I went back to doing things I’d much enjoyed when younger: playing bridge, writing fiction, and doing theater.   One of the first community theater groups that I was much involved with was Little Theater Off Broadway, located in Grove City, Ohio, a Columbus suburb on the south side.   I have done five previous shows there (acting in four, directing one), but the last was in 2008.   However weeks ago I auditioned for and was given the lead male role of “Charlie” in LTOB’s next production: Edward Albee’s “Seascape.”   The play was originally produced on Broadway in 1975, directing by Albee himself, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year.   Though I read it when it first came out, and it has always been a favorite (right behind “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in my list of his finest plays), I have never seen a production. The play is best describ...

After United States v. Windsor ,   the United States Supreme Court decision last June that struck down the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] forbidding the federal government from recognizing gay marriages validly performed in a jurisdiction where they're legal, I wrote a blog post predicting that the Court would go further next time and rule that a gay marriage valid in one state is valid in all states.   [See Related Posts below.]   Now, on Valentine's Day,  I go further.   Certainly by the end of June of 2016, and quite possibly by the end of June in 2015 the Court will rule that any state law forbidding gays to marry is unconstitutional.   That will instantly make gay marriages possible everywhere, a stunning development.  Edith Windsor Celebrating When the Court handed down the DOMA decision it allowed Edie Windsor to get back the $363,000 the federal government had forced her to pay as an inheritance tax when her wife ...