Adrienne Lita Hawkins (1931-09-13) September 13, 1931 (age 92) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation
Playwright, professor, poet
Education
Ohio State University (BA) Columbia University
Literary movement
Black Arts Movement
Notable works
Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964); Ohio State Murders (1992)
Notable awards
American Book Award; Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers' Award; Obie Awards; Dramatists Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award
Spouse
Joseph Kennedy
(m. 1953; div. 1966)
Children
2
Adrienne Kennedy (born September 13, 1931) is an American playwright.[1] She is best known for Funnyhouse of a Negro, which premiered in 1964 and won an Obie Award.[2] She won a lifetime Obie as well. In 2018 she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
In 2022, Kennedy received the Gold Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters;[3] given every six years, it has been awarded to only 16 people, including Eugene O'Neill.[4]
Kennedy has been contributing to American theater since the early 1960s, influencing generations of playwrights with her haunting, fragmentary lyrical dramas. Exploring the violence racism brings to people's lives, Kennedy's plays express poetic alienation, transcending the particulars of character and plot through ritualistic repetition and radical structural experimentation. Much of her work explores issues of race, kinship, and violence in American society, and many of her plays are "autobiographically inspired."[5]
Kennedy is noted for the use of surrealism in her plays, which are often plotless and symbolic, drawing on mythical, historical, and imaginary figures to depict and explore the African-American experience.[6]
In 1969, The New York Times critic Clive Barnes wrote: "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."[7] In 1995, critic Michael Feingold of the Village Voice wrote that, "with Samuel Beckett gone, Adrienne Kennedy is probably the boldest artist now writing for the theater."[8] Kennedy has also written in other genres, including poetry and essays.
^Peterson, Jane T., and Suzanne Bennett. "Adrienne Kennedy". Women Playwrights of Diversity. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 201–205.
^Harry Ransom Center. "Biographical sketch". Adrienne Kennedy: An Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. University of Texas at Austin.
^"Adrienne Kennedy among winners of arts academy prizes". ny1.com. Associated Press. March 15, 2022. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
^"Awards". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved October 19, 2022.
^Sollors, Werner. "Introduction", The Adrienne Kennedy Reader, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, p. vii. ("An introduction to the playwright's work", A.R.T.)
^Wilkerson, Margaret B. "Adrienne Kennedy", in Thadious M. Davis and Trudier Harris (eds), Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers. Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 38. Detroit: Gale, 1985, p. 163.
^Barnes, Clive (November 1, 1969). "'A Rat's Mass' Weaves Drama of Poetic Fabric". The New York Times. p. 39.
^Feingold, Michael. "Blaxpressionism." Village Voice, October 3, 1995, p. 93.
AdrienneKennedy (born September 13, 1931) is an American playwright. She is best known for Funnyhouse of a Negro, which premiered in 1964 and won an Obie...
Ohio State Murders is a play written by AdrienneKennedy. The play was first published on January 14, 1991. Ohio State Murders is a one-act play that revolves...
Black and White is a one act play split into three scenes written by AdrienneKennedy. Actors are made to look like famous film stars Marlon Brando, Paul...
singer-songwriter Adrienne Goodson (born 1966), American former professional basketball player Adrienne Horvath (1925–2012), French politician AdrienneKennedy (born...
Funnyhouse of a Negro is a one-act play by AdrienneKennedy. The play opened off-Broadway in 1964 and won the Obie Award for Distinguished Play. The play...
(1954) a play by Marguerite Yourcenar Electra and Orestes, plays by AdrienneKennedy, 1972 Electra (1974) a play by Robert Montgomery, directed by Joseph...
United States. She donated $5 million to establish the Adrienne Arsht Musical Theater Fund at the Kennedy Center to support a wide variety of musical theater...
Horton Foote, María Irene Fornés, Athol Fugard, John Guare, Bill Irwin, AdrienneKennedy, Romulus Linney, Charles Mee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel...
did not publish any other books in his lifetime. Victor Spinetti and AdrienneKennedy adapted his two books into a one-act play, The Lennon Play: In His...
Bamuthi Joseph Garson Kanin George S. Kaufman Moisés Kaufman AdrienneKennedy Charles Rann Kennedy Stanley Keyes Sidney Kingsley James Kirkwood Jr. Kevin Kling...
The Lennon Play: In His Own Write, co-adapted by Victor Spinetti and AdrienneKennedy. After negotiations between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director...
Sandbox Drowning Funnyhouse of a Negro Edward Albee Maria Irene Fornes AdrienneKennedy The Pershing Square Signature Center, Off-Broadway The Wolves Sarah...
2004 – John Guare 2010 – Romulus Linney 2016 – Wallace Shawn 2022 – AdrienneKennedy Source: American Academy of Arts and Letters 1915 – Charles William...
(1962), an early version of "And Things that Go Bump in the Night"; AdrienneKennedy for Funnyhouse of a Negro (1963); Lonne Elder III for an early version...
With the Hat". The New York Times. Hernandez, Ernio (May 2, 2006). "AdrienneKennedy and Stephen Adly Guirgis Win 2006 PEN/ Laura Pels Awards for Drama"...
Beowulf Boritt (Sustained Excellence in Set Design); Anne Kauffman 2008 AdrienneKennedy (Lifetime Achievement Award); Annie Dorsen (Best New Theatre Piece...
experimental play by AdrienneKennedy. It premiered in 1965 at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut one year after Kennedy's most well-known piece...
racial minorities, such as black playwrights Douglas Turner Ward, AdrienneKennedy, Ed Bullins, Charles Fuller, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ntozake Shange, George...
Spalding Gray, David Hare, Lillian Hellman, Harry Houdini, Anne Jackson, AdrienneKennedy, David Mamet, Terrence McNally, Arthur Miller, John Osborne, Peter...
Paul Foster, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, AdrienneKennedy, Harvey Fierstein, and Rochelle Owens. La MaMa also became an international...
Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her role as Suzanne Alexander in AdrienneKennedy's The Ohio State Murders. Hamilton appeared in over two dozen films...
Global Information