Adrienne Kennedy
Encyclopedia
Adrienne Kennedy is an African-American playwright
and was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement
of the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known for her first major play Funnyhouse of a Negro.
Many of Kennedy's plays explore issues of race, kinship, and violence in American society, and many of her works are "autobiographically inspired."
In 1995, critic Michael Feingold of the Village Voice declared that "with Beckett gone, Adrienne Kennedy is probably the boldest artist now writing for the theater."
Kennedy is noted for the use of surrealism
in her plays. Her plays are often plotless and symbolic, drawing on mythical, historical and imaginary figures to depict and explore the American experience. New York Times critic Clive Barnes
noted that "While almost every black playwright in the country is fundamentally concerned with realism--LeRoi Jones and Ed Bullins
at times have something different going but even their symbolism is straightforward stuff–-Miss Kennedy is weaving some kind of dramatic fabric of poetry."
. As a child she spent most of her time reading books like Jane Eyre
and The Secret Garden
. She often enjoyed spending time reading instead of engaging in games many other children enjoyed. She admired and crushed on actors like Orson Welles
. It wasn’t until her teen years did she begin to enjoy and focus more on plays. One of the first plays she saw was Glass Menagerie. It was plays like these that inspired Adrienne to explore her passions for playwriting.
When she went to Ohio State University her interest in playwriting continued. Eventually she met and married Joseph Kennedy, with whom she had two children, Joseph Jr. and Adam. When her husband went off to fight in the Vietnam War
while she was pregnant, she was able to write her first play. Her first produced play was Funnyhouse of a Negro. Most of Adrienne’s work was based on her experience. Lovalerie King said Kennedy’s plays “featured nonlinear narratives, dramatic and surrealistic imagery, split characters who existed in dreamlike states, fragmented formats, and unconventional plots." Her routine use of poetic and buoyant language, pregnant with multiple levels of meaning, makes Kennedy a deliberate master of the verbal metaphor. She combines elements of expressionism with a verbal fluidity to evoke a series of profound and provocative effects. Critics of Kennedy's work must be attuned to a variety of critical approaches and traditions to accurately assess her value to the theatrical community”.
She was later a founding member of the Women’s Theatre Council in 1971. She won several awards for her plays including two Village Voice Obie Award
s. She wrote thirteen published plays, five unpublished, several autobiographies, a novella and a short story. She also wrote under aliases like Adrienne Cornell. She got her bachelors degree at Ohio State University for education but also got a degree at Columbia University
. She and her husband moved to England and eventually divorced. She currently lectures at Yale University
, Princeton University
, University of California, Berkeley
and University of California, Davis
.
Kennedy was playwright-in-residence at the Signature Theatre in New York City
during their 1996-1997 season. Seven of her plays were performed during her residency.
In 2003, Ms. Kennedy was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Literature by her undergraduate alma mater, the Ohio State University
.
Ms. Kennedy was honored at the 2008 Obie Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement
Black Arts Movement
The Black Arts Movement or BAM is the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. It was started in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka...
of the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known for her first major play Funnyhouse of a Negro.
Many of Kennedy's plays explore issues of race, kinship, and violence in American society, and many of her works are "autobiographically inspired."
In 1995, critic Michael Feingold of the Village Voice declared that "with Beckett gone, Adrienne Kennedy is probably the boldest artist now writing for the theater."
Kennedy is noted for the use of surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
in her plays. Her plays are often plotless and symbolic, drawing on mythical, historical and imaginary figures to depict and explore the American experience. New York Times critic Clive Barnes
Clive Barnes (critic)
Clive Alexander Barnes, CBE was a British-born American writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977 he was the dance and theater critic for the New York Times, the most powerful position he had held, since its theater critics' reviews historically have had great influence on the success or failure of...
noted that "While almost every black playwright in the country is fundamentally concerned with realism--LeRoi Jones and Ed Bullins
Ed Bullins
Ed Bullins is an African American playwright. He was also the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. In addition, he has won numerous awards, including the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several Obies. He is one of the best known playwrights to come from the Black Arts Movement...
at times have something different going but even their symbolism is straightforward stuff–-Miss Kennedy is weaving some kind of dramatic fabric of poetry."
Biography
Adrienne Kennedy was born Adrienne Lita Hawkins on September 13. 1931 in Pittsburgh, PA. Her mother Etta Hawkins was a teacher and her father Cornell Wallace Hawkins was a social worker. She spent most of her childhood in Cleveland, Ohio. She grew up in an integrated neighborhood and didn’t face many prejudices until her college years at Ohio State UniversityOhio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
. As a child she spent most of her time reading books like Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
and The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...
. She often enjoyed spending time reading instead of engaging in games many other children enjoyed. She admired and crushed on actors like Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. It wasn’t until her teen years did she begin to enjoy and focus more on plays. One of the first plays she saw was Glass Menagerie. It was plays like these that inspired Adrienne to explore her passions for playwriting.
When she went to Ohio State University her interest in playwriting continued. Eventually she met and married Joseph Kennedy, with whom she had two children, Joseph Jr. and Adam. When her husband went off to fight in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
while she was pregnant, she was able to write her first play. Her first produced play was Funnyhouse of a Negro. Most of Adrienne’s work was based on her experience. Lovalerie King said Kennedy’s plays “featured nonlinear narratives, dramatic and surrealistic imagery, split characters who existed in dreamlike states, fragmented formats, and unconventional plots." Her routine use of poetic and buoyant language, pregnant with multiple levels of meaning, makes Kennedy a deliberate master of the verbal metaphor. She combines elements of expressionism with a verbal fluidity to evoke a series of profound and provocative effects. Critics of Kennedy's work must be attuned to a variety of critical approaches and traditions to accurately assess her value to the theatrical community”.
She was later a founding member of the Women’s Theatre Council in 1971. She won several awards for her plays including two Village Voice Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s. She wrote thirteen published plays, five unpublished, several autobiographies, a novella and a short story. She also wrote under aliases like Adrienne Cornell. She got her bachelors degree at Ohio State University for education but also got a degree at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. She and her husband moved to England and eventually divorced. She currently lectures at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...
.
Awards and honors
Ms. Kennedy has won two Obie Awards: "Distinguished Play" in 1964 for Funnyhouse of a Negro, and "Best new American Play" in 1996 for June and Jean in Concert and Sleep Deprivation Chamber. In 1994 she won both the Lila Wallace—Reader's Digest Writers' Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Literature Award. She was also granted a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing (1967), two Rockefeller Foundation Grants (1967 & 1970), a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1972), the Creative Artists Public Service grant in 1974, the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, and the Pierre Lecomte du Novy AwardKennedy was playwright-in-residence at the Signature Theatre in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during their 1996-1997 season. Seven of her plays were performed during her residency.
In 2003, Ms. Kennedy was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Literature by her undergraduate alma mater, the Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
.
Ms. Kennedy was honored at the 2008 Obie Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Alexander Plays
Suzanne Alexander is a recurring character in several of Kennedy's plays. She Talks to Beethoven, The Ohio State Murders, The Film Club, and The Dramatic Circle are collectively known as the Alexander Plays, and were published together under that title in 1992. Also published in 1992 was a letter written from Suzanne Alexander's perspective "Letter to My Students on My Sixty-First Birthday by Suzanne Alexander". The Alexander plays are characterized by less overt surrealism than many of Kennedy's earlier works, but still avoid linear narrative. In the foreword to the printed collection of plays, Alisa Solomon writes "the action of these plays is made up not of the events of Suzanne's life but of the process of turning memory into meaning."Plays
- Funnyhouse of a Negro, 1964
- The Owl Answers, 1965
- A Rat's Mass, 1967 (revised as an improvisational jazz opera A Rat's Mass/Procession in Shout in 1976)
- The Lennon play: In His Own Write (Adapted from John LennonJohn LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's In his own write and A Spaniard in the Works; with Victor SpinettiVictor SpinettiVictor Spinetti is a Welsh comic actor.-Early life:Spinetti was born in Cwm, Ebbw Vale, Wales of Welsh and Italian heritage from a grandfather who was said to have walked from Italy to Wales to work as a coal miner...
), 1967 - A Beast's Story, 1969 (produced with The Owl Answers under the title Cities in Bezique)
- Boats, 1969
- Sun (monologue), 1969
- A Lesson in Dead Language, 1968
- Electra and Orestes (adapted from the plays by Euripedes), 1972
- An Evening with Dead Essex (one-act documentary drama), 1972
- A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White, 1976
- A Lancashire Lad (children's musical), 1980
- Black Children's Day (children's play), 1980
- Diary of Lights ("A Musical Without Songs"), 1987
- She Talks to Beethoven (one-act play, later collected as part of The Alexander Plays), 1989
- The Ohio State Murders (one-act play, later collected as part of The Alexander Plays), 1992
- The Film Club (A Monologue by Suzanne Alexander), published 1992
- The Dramatic Circle (radio play based on the events in the monologue The Film Club; published in 1994 in Moon Marked and Touched By Sun: plays by African-American women, edited by Sydné Mahone), 1992
- Motherhood 2000 (single scene short play), 1994
- June and Jean in Concert (play version of Kennedy's book People Who Led to My Plays), 1995
- Sleep Deprivation Chamber (with her son, Adam Kennedy), 1996
- Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? (with Adam Kennedy), 2008
Other Works
- "Because of the King of France", 1960
- People Who Led to My Plays (memoir), 1987
- Deadly Triplets (novella), 1990
- "Letter to My Students on My Sixty-First Birthday by Suzanne Alexander" (essay), 1992
- "Secret Paragraphs about My Brother" (essay), 1996
- "A Letter to Flowers" (essay), 1998
- "Sisters Etta and Ella (excerpt from a narrative)", 1999
- "Grendel and Grendel's Mother" (essay), 1999
External links
- AdrienneKennedy.com
- "Adrienne Kennedy", doollee
- Adrienne Kennedy - substantial entry at Answers.com