Biography

Adrienne Kennedy was born Adrienne Hawkins in Pittsburgh in 1931, but spent most of her childhood in Cleveland, with frequent visits to Montezuma, Georgia, where many of her relatives lived.  The atmosphere of the south and the close relationships she maintained there would prove influential on her work.  Movies also served as an early inspiration for her, and from a young age she immersed herself in films and Hollywood magazines, enjoying films like The Wizard of Oz and The Blue Bird, as well as early horror flicks such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man.

In 1953, she graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in education and married Joseph Kennedy within a few weeks.  While Joseph fought in the Korean war, Kennedy, pregnant with her first child, Joseph Jr, lived with her parents and began writing.  Once Joseph returned from Korea, they moved to New York where Kennedy was drawn to modern art and theatre, especially the works of Miller, Williams, Chekov, and Lorca and continued her studies at the American Theater Wing and at the New School.  During this time, she wrote her first play, “The Pale Blue Flowers,” which was never produced (no complete draft survives).  She went on to study writing at Columbia University, but struggled to get work produced or published.  In 1960, Kennedy and her husband embarked on an extended stay in Africa and Europe where she studied masks, read extensively, and published her first story “Because of the King of France,” under a pen name in the African journal Black Orpheus.

While in Africa, Kennedy started writing Funnyhouse of a Negro, but finished the piece in Italy after complications with her secondary pregnancy forced her to move. Here she gave birth to her second son, Adam.  In 1962, after returning to New York, Kennedy joined Edward Albee’s workshop at Circle in the Square, and the next year Albee invited her to join his Theatre 1964 playwriting unit at Cherry Lane. In 1964, Theatre 1964 produced Funnyhouse of the Negro, and the play proved a great success, earning Kennedy her first Obie Award. In 1966, as she was gaining esteem as a playwright, Kennedy and her husband divorced.

Over the next few decades, she would build an impressive body of experimental plays that would secure her place as an innovator in Off-Broadway circles, as well as the American theatre landscape at large. Her plays include The Owl Answers (1965), A Rat's Mass (1966), Lesson in a Dead Language (1966), The Lennon Play: in His Own Write (1968), A Beast's Story (1969), An Evening with Dead Essex (1972), A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976), She Talks to Beethoven (1989), and Ohio State Murders (1992). In 1996, she co-wrote Sleep Deprivation Chamber with her son Adam P. Kennedy, and in 2018, she premiered He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box at Theatre for a New Audience. (Full bio)

Plays

THE TIGER AND THE TOMBOY (1956)

In this unproduced one-act, two childhood friends struggle to reveal their true feelings, spurred on by glamorized versions of their secret loves.

Cast Requirement: 4 (2f, 2m)

Characters: Sandra/Shari, Ty/Tyrone, Maud, Maurice

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

FUNNYHOUSE OF A NEGRO (1964) 

Funnyhouse of a Negro is a modern classic about the student Sarah, a young Black woman living in New York City, and her search for her identity in a complex, warring, and fractured world. This search is manifested in Sarah's many selves: Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Hapsburg, Patrice Lumumba, and Jesus Christ. Performed by colleges worldwide, Adrienne Kennedy's landmark play continues to resonate with each new generation. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 8 (5f, 3m)

Characters: Negro-Sarah, Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria Regina, Jesus, Patrice Lumumba, Sarah’s Landlady, Raymond, The Mother

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

THE OWL ANSWERS (1965) 

An African-American girl dreams of establishing a heritage and imagines she is applying to bury her father in Westminster Cathedral. The chorus enters. Ann Boleyn, Shakespeare, and William the Conqueror scorn her: whoever heard of a black with such a heritage? Her father was white, she protests, and her mother was his family's cook. As a child she had to enter through the back door when she wanted to visit him. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 8 (2f, 5m, 1any)

Characters: She who is Clara Passmore who is the Virgin Mary who is the Bastard who is the Owl, Bastard’s Black Mother who is the Reverend’s Wife who is Ann Boleyn, Goddam Father who is the Richest White Man in the Town who is the Dead White Father who is Reverend Passmore, The White Bird who is Reverend Passmore’s Canary who is God’s Dove, The Negro Man, Shakespeare, Chaucer, William the Conqueror

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

A RAT’S MASS (1966)

Cast Requirement: 8-9 (3f, 5-6m)

Characters: Rosemary; Brother Rat; Sister Rat; Procession of Jesus, Mary, Two Wise Men, Shepherd

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

A LESSON IN DEAD LANGUAGE (1966) 

Race, culture, gender, and religion come together in A Lesson in Dead Language. The lesson is being given by a white dog to seven girl pupils who, although the stage directions do not specifically identify them by race, have usually been played by blacks. The pupils are learning about Caesar, Calpurnia, and the Ides of March in a context that holds them accountable for the death of Caesar, thus inducing guilt in them and implying that they are not fit to be heirs to the European civilization that sprang in part from ancient Rome. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 9+ (8 f, 1m, any)

Characters: White Dog, 7 Pupils, Statues of Jesus, Mary, Two Wise Men, & A Shepard

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

THE LENNON PLAY: IN HIS OWN WRITE (1968) 

Kennedy’s adaptation of John Lennon’s In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. Co-written with Lennon and Victor Spinetti.

Cast Requirement: 25+

Characters: Me, Teacher, TV Storyteller, Actors 1, 2, & 3, Usherette, Priest, Deaf Ted, Danoota, Mum, Dad, Great Man, Pals, Buddies, Mates, Monsters, Officer, Family Solicitor, Uncle, Aunt, Fatty, Scruddy, Narrator, Radio Actors 1, 2, & 3, Mrs. Sutherskill, Mammy, TV Commère, The Reverend Felix Hyacinth Smythe, Mr. Wabooba, Shamrock Womlbs, Oxo Whitney, Mary Atkins, Sydnees, Inspectre Basil, Jock the Cripple, Great Lady, Figurehead, Policemat, TV Cameras 1 & 2, TV Floor Manager, Conspirators 1 & 2, Stage Manager, A King

Publication: Adrienne Kennedy: Collected Plays & Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. Library of America, 2023. (Link)

SUN: A PLAY FOR MALCOLM X INSPIRED BY HIS MURDER (1968)

Commissioned in 1968 for the Royal Court Theatre in London, this stream-of-consciousness monologue reveals the inner journey of Man at the moment of his death. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 1 (1m)

Characters: Man

Publication: Adrienne Kennedy in One Act. University of Minnesota Press, 1988. (Link)

A BEAST STORY (1969)

Cast Requirement: 4 (2f, 2m)

Characters: Beast Girl, Beast Woman, Beast Man, Dead Human 

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings, 2023. (Link)

BOATS (1969) 

Cast Requirement: 2 (1f, 1m)

Characters: He, She 

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings, 2023. (Link)

An Evening with Dead Essex (1973)

An Evening with Dead Essex “joins documentary with imagination: It concerns the factual account of a Black Vietnam vet named Mark Essex who returns from war and commits a mass shooting, killing nine and injuring more before being shot by police. The play takes place in a film production studio, with Kennedy insisting that “actors use their real names and the director should get the actors to play themselves.” The action consists of the actors and filmmakers, all but one of whom are Black, reconstruing Essex’s life so as to make some sense of the violence of his death — and of the violence that surrounds us all.” (Source)

Cast Requirement: 6 (1f, 2m, 3any)

Characters: Director, Projectionist, Actor, Actor, Assistant Director, Actress

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976)

A young black writer embarks on a voyage through her life: her parents' marriage, her brother's accident, her romance, then marriage and its subsequent collapse. The voyage takes place within three movies that dominate her mind; Now Voyager, Viva Zapata, and A Place in the Sun. Her voice inhabits three movie stars as she becomes a bit player in her own life. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 10 (5w, 5m)

Characters: Clara, Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Jean Peters, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Shelly Winters, The Mother (Hattie), The Father (Wallace), The Husband (Eddie)

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

Diary of Lights: New York About 1955 (1978)

Diary of Lights is based on diaries Kennedy kept of her early experiences on New York’s Upper West side. Part dramatic literature, part dance, and part musical theatre, Diary of Lights is a window into a part of American culture. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 10 (5f, 5m)

Characters: Billie, Eddie, Aaron, Margo, Mavis, Roy, Ellen Mel, Aisha, Mohammed

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

A Lancashire Lad (1980)

Commissioned by the Empire State Youth Theater and inspired by Charlie Chaplin's autobiography, A Lancashire Lad is a fictionalized account of the childhood of Chaplin and includes musical numbers. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 20+

Characters: William Grinby; Willy Grinby; Celia Grinby; Jack Grinby; John Grinby; Agnes; Music Hall Manager; Mr. Goodrich; Mr. Garritty; Madame Ostrova; Lancashire Lads; Caretakers at the Poorhouse; Poorhouse Chorus; Children; Pub Cronies; Vendor; Young Girl; Young Boy; Landlady

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

Electra (1980)

An adaptation of the Euripides play of the same title, based on a 1963 translation by Phillip Vellacott.

Cast Requirement: 8+ (4w, 4m)

Characters: Electra, Peasant, Orestes, Pylades, Chorus, Old Man, Messenger, Clytemnestra

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

ORESTES (1980)

An adaptation of the Euripides play of the same title, based on a 1958 translation by William Arrowsmith.

Cast Requirement: 9+

Characters: Electra, Orestes, Chorus, Pylades, Helen, Hermione, Menelaus, Tyndareus, Trojan Slave, Apollo

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

Black Children's Day (1980)

Commissioned by Rites and Reason Theatre at Brown University, Black Children’s Day is set in a history museum. The story unfolds against a photographic exhibit of World War II aircraft; a “film of fragmented pictures” of clocks, mirrors, and bureaus; a mural in “violent abstract lines”; and five “realistic, historically accurate” painted panels depicting American Black life from the 1840s to the 1940s. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 10+

Characters: Negro Children of the Anderson Elementary School (about 10); The General; Roy; Constance; Caroline; Assistant Curator; Radio

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

She Talks to Beethoven (1989)

She Talks to Beethoven, written by pioneering avant-garde playwright Adrienne Kennedy in 1989, offers a layered discourse on politics, revolution and loss. Set in Ghana, Suzanne waits in her room listening to radio broadcasts about her husband who has mysteriously disappeared while she attempts to write about and communicate with composer Ludwig van Beethoven.  Her world is infiltrated by snatches of Ghanaian string music, the revolutionary words of Frantz Fanon and strains of Beethoven's Fidelio. Suzanne, recovering from an unspecified illness hovers in displaced time and space fluctuating between Vienna, Austria, in 1803, and Accra, Ghana, in 1961. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 2 (1m, 1f)

Characters: Ludwig van Beethoven, Suzanne Alexander

Publication: The Alexander Plays. University of Minnesota Press, 1992. (Link)

The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

The Dramatic Circle (1991)

A radio play commissioned by WNYC, The Dramatic Circle is a dramatization of the events in the monologue The Film Club. Suzanne Alexander and her sister-in-law Alice, two African American writers in London, participate in an unusual literary circle's reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  (Source)

Cast Requirement: 2w, 1m, 4 any gender

Characters: Alice Alexander, Suzanne Alexander, David Alexander, Dr. Freudenberger, The Dramatic Circle, The Ambassador

Publication: The Alexander Plays. University of Minnesota Press, 1992. (Link)

The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

The Ohio State Murders (1992)

Asked by her alma mater to discuss the violent imagery in her plays, Suzanne Alexander rehearses a speech recounting her years as a student at Ohio State, where her youthful idealism and enthusiasm were met with psychological, structural, and emotional violence.

Cast Requirement: 8 (4w, 4m)

Characters: Suzanne Alexander, Suzanne, David Alexander, Robert Hampshire, Aunt Louise, Val, Iris Ann, Suzanne’s Father

Publication: The Alexander Plays. University of Minnesota Press, 1992. (Link)

The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

The Film Club (1992)

The Film Club is a monologue, in which Suzanne Alexander recalls spending the winter of 1961 in London with her sister-in-law Alice, as they wait for news of Suzanne’s husband who has been detained in West Africa.

Cast Requirement: 1

Characters: Suzanne Alexander

Publication: The Alexander Plays. University of Minnesota Press, 1992. (Link)
The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

Motherhood 2000 (1994)

In Motherhood 2000, Mother/Writer recalls and then reenacts her execution of Richard Fox, a policeman she believes viciously beat her son. Set in the near future, the play brings the policeman who was responsible right to Kennedy’s New York neighborhood, and the miracle play that unfolds ends when the writer strikes this policeman with a hammer. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 3+ (1f, 1m)

Characters: Mother/Writer, Richard Fox, Miracle Play ensemble

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

June and Jean in Concert (1995)

A dramatic interpretation of Kennedy’s memoir, People Who Led to My Plays.

Cast Requirement: 10+ (6f, 5m)

Characters: June, Jean, Mother, Father, Dead Aunt Ella, Jackie, Dr. Benjamin Mays, Nat King Cole, June’s Ghost, Minister, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Mr. Davis, Judy Garland, Wee Bonnie Baker, Nurse.

Publication: The Adrienne Kennedy Reader. University of Minnesota Press, 2001. (Link)

Sleep Deprivation Chamber (1996)

Co-authored with Adam P. Kennedy. In this autobiographical drama, a broken taillight leads to the brutal beating of a highly educated, middle-class black man by a policeman in suburban Virginia. The Kennedys interweave the trial of the victimized son (accused of assaulting the offending officer) with the mother’s poignant letters in his defense and her remembrances of growing up in the 1940s, when her parents were striving “to make Cleveland a better place for Negroes.” They have created a gripping examination of the conflicting realities of the black experience in twentieth-century America. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 12 (3w, 9m)

Characters: Suzanne, Teddy, March, David Alexander, Mr. Edelstein, Ms. Wagner, Officer Holzer, Ensemble

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

Hitler’s Addendum (2002)

Cast Requirement: 

Characters: Suzanne Alexander, Etta Harrison, Adolf Hitler, Young Etta, Ensemble

Publication Info: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles (2008)

Co-authored with Adam Kennedy. Adrienne Kennedy is thrust into the world of the rich, famous, and talented when she moves to London in the 1960s to work on The Lennon Play: In His Own Write. A true story. (Source)

Cast Requirement:  2 (1f, 1m)

Characters: Adrienne Kennedy, Adam Kennedy

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)

He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (2018)

Set in Georgia and New York City in 1941 this heartbreaking memory tale of segregation and doomed love braids together Jim Crow, sexual hypocrisy, and the lingering shadow of a terrible crime. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 3 (1f, 2m)

Characters: Harrison Aherne, Kay, Chris

Publication: Collected Plays and Other Writings. Edited by Marc Robinson. The Library of America, 2023. (Link)