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P.06 b6 DEC-13-1994 19:41 FROM TO b7C the stamp. O'NeILl is the first American playwright to be honored with a United States stamp. His plays received four Pulitzer Prizes and the top world award, the Nobel Prize for Literature. b6 a member of the Postmaster General's b7C Citizens' stamp Advisory Committee, designed the stamp. It is based on a photograph of o'neirL that appeared in the books section of the New York Times, September 22, 1957. The portrait captures o'NEILl in a characteristic brooding mood, his xight hand curled against his face. It was printed in dark purple. modeled the stamp and the engravers b6 were (vignette) and b7C (lettering) of the BEP. Across the top of the vertical stamp in sans serif capitals is "EuGENE O'NEILL." In the same typestyle is #playwright" at the bottom. The vertical inscriptions also are sans serif but in purple of a lighter value. Vertical left is "one Dollar"; vertical right #united States." EUGENE o'NEILL's first produced play was staged in 1916 in an abandoned fish house on a wharf and was viewed by a small audience that sat uncomfortably on benches. It was a play about the sea, so the Atlantic Ocean, not scenery was the backdrop. O'Nerlt's father, a well-known and prosperous actor, subsidized him with an allowance of $i a day while he learned his craft with the Provincetown Players. Just a few years later in 1920, O'NEILL's first. EUGENE GLADSTONE O'NEILL added Pulitzer Prizes with Journey into Night," posthumously produced in 1957. In 1936, he won the world's top award for literature--the Nobel Prize. He is widely regarded as America's greatest playwright and ranks with ShAw as the most freguently produced of this century.. With one exception, the comedy, "Ah, wilderness," O'neill wrote tragedy. * The playwright's personal life was repeatedly scarred by tragedy. He Once wrote: "sure, I'll write about happiness if I"ever happen to meet up with that' luxury..."