Marvin's Room is a play written by
Scott McPherson. It concerns two sisters, Bessie, their father's saintly caretaker who has
leukemia, and Lee, a wisecracking, psychologically unstable free spirit who has not helped with the caretaking. It is based upon McPherson's experiences with older relatives who lived in Florida. McPherson cared for his partner, cartoonist and activist Daniel Sotomayor, who died from AIDS. His experiences living in the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic influenced his writing. McPherson himself died in 1992 of AIDS at age 33.