Tina Howe
American playwright (1937-2023)
Mabel Davis "Tina" Howe (November 21, 1937 – August 28, 2023) was an American playwright. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Howe's best-known works include Museum, The Art of Dining, Painting Churches, Coastal Disturbances, and Pride's Crossing.
Her plays won numerous awards, including the 1998 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play for Pride's Crossing, which was also a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Coastal Disturbances was nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play.
Early life
Mabel Davis Howe was born in Manhattan on November 21, 1937. Howe came from a literary family. Her grandfather, Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe, published over 50 books and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1925. Her father Quincy Howe wrote and broadcast the evening news on CBS Radio from 1942 to 1947, and then on ABC television. He was the author of the three-volume history, A World History of Our Own Times. Her uncle, Mark DeWolfe Howe, taught constitutional law at Harvard Law School and was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s law clerk and biographer.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tina Howe” is american playwright (1937-2023). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tina, Howe and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american playwright (1937-2023)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15488944. VIAF identifies the subject as 91583628. The Library of Congress control number is n80008421. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2023, 1998 and 1997.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tina Howe”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tina Howe primary sources, Tina Howe archive and Tina research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tina Howe”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tina Howe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.