I don t think if I started (writing plays) in my early 20s, I would have written good ones, he says. There is a certain time when someone starts doing what he does well. Mozart started at 8. George Bernard Shaw was 42 when he wrote his first play. I knew when I wrote ( The Zoo Story ), I knew it was good. But Albee doesn t see his work in a romantic light. His brain chemistry made him a playwright, he says, he was just born that way.

I get really fussed up when people talk about creativity, Albee says, on the eve of receiving his Creativity Award from the academy. I am a playwright by nature, it s the way my brain works. Albee seems to enjoy declaring and shaking up things. Some people, he says, are born to be writers, some ax murderers, some even Republicans. (When told Lancaster is a Republican bastion, Albee laughs and says, Oh, then, make sure you get that in the story. ) EDWARD ALBEE TRIBUTE When: Tonight, 7 p.m.

cocktail reception, 8 p.m. concert/award presentation Where: Pennsylvania Academy of Music, 42 N. Prince St. Cost: Tickets are $50 and are available by calling 399-9733 Program: Concert will feature students performing from the suites and partitas of J.S. Bach and David Houck s Grave e Grandioso. The Newstead Trio will perform Happiness, from Chen Yi s Tunes from my Home. He is not one to suffer for his art. I don t understand people who talk about the deep pain of writing, he says.

I leave the pain to the characters. And he rejects the idea that his writing comes from the pain of a difficult childhood. I never cottoned to the idea that we write for need, Albee declares. We write because we are writers. It was who I was, therefore I did it. Adopted by wealthy parents, Albee doesn t hesitate to explain there was a bad fit between them. They didn t know how to be parents, he says. They adopted me for the wrong reasons. I was not what they had bought. We never got along well.