After Mr. Rudy said that the rights for Mr. Streeter to present the show had never been granted, Mr. Streeter acknowledged that the situation was complicated. Both parties agreed that by November, they were discussing rights for a Portland production of “Virginia Woolf” with the understanding that the Albee estate would have to approve casting choices; last week that discussion fell apart after Mr. Streeter made clear his desire to add depth by casting a black actor as Nick.

Albee’s record on nontraditional casting is complex.

In a 2010 book, “Albee in Performance,” the playwright is quoted expressing concern about the casting of black actresses in the role of Martha, who is the daughter of the college’s president, in “Virginia Woolf.” “That would instantly raise a lot of questions, since it’s a totally naturalistic play,” he said. “Is this a black college? Do we have a black president of a white college? Not very likely.”

But eight years earlier, in 2002, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival staged “Virginia Woolf” with a black actress, Andrea Frye, playing Martha. Its director, Tim Bond, now a professor at the University of Washington, said the theater had sent the cast members’ photos and descriptive biographies to Albee, and they were approved. Mr. Bond also recalled a 2000 production of the play at Howard University with a black cast; Albee reportedly assisted with the production.

“I think the play would work beautifully with any number of approaches to cross-cultural casting,” Mr. Bond said. “It’s a play about the human condition, and any person should be able to play any one of those roles.”

There have been black actors in other Albee plays, including a production now running in London of “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?,” which features a white actor (Damian Lewis) and a black actress (Sophie Okonedo) in the lead roles.

In theater, unlike in film, writers (and their estates, after their deaths until copyrights expire) retain oversight of their works, and no one is questioning that the Albee estate has the right to approve or reject casting decisions. And debate over casting is not infrequent. Just two years ago, the playwright Katori Hall added a requirement (barring an exemption from her) that black actors play the two roles in her play, “The Mountaintop,” after a college production cast a white actor as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And the Gershwin estate has long insisted that “Porgy and Bess” have a black cast.