Adrienne Kennedy
Adrienne Kennedy, born on September 13, 1931, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a prominent American playwright known for her unique and surreal theatrical style. Raised in a diverse neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, she initially enjoyed a sense of cultural harmony which was challenged when she experienced racial isolation during her time at Ohio State University. Encouraged by playwright Edward Albee, her career took off with the production of her groundbreaking play, *Funnyhouse of a Negro*, in 1964, which became a critical success and established her as a significant voice in theater.
Kennedy’s body of work, encompassing over twenty plays, a memoir, and numerous essays, explores complex themes of identity and the struggles of individuals against societal forces. Notably, her plays often lack traditional plots and feature characters with multiple personalities, employing masks to symbolize varying aspects of identity influenced by African art and culture. Throughout her career, she has garnered numerous accolades, including two Obie Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Gold Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kennedy’s recent works continue to resonate, with her play *Ohio State Murders* being produced on Broadway in 2022, reinforcing her lasting impact on American theater.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Adrienne Kennedy
- Born: September 13, 1931
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Author Profile
Playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s plays baffle and entice theater critics. In Kennedy, critics recognize a singularly able writer whose surrealism surpasses that of Tom Stoppard and Amiri Baraka. Early recognition of Kennedy’s ability by Edward Albee encouraged the yet-unpublished playwright to persist in her writing and led to the production of her Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964).
Raised in a multiethnic neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, where her father, Cornell Wallace Hawkins, was an executive secretary for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and her mother, Etta Haugabook Hawkins, was a teacher, Kennedy was secure in her identity. She grew up associating with her neighbors—Blacks, Jews, Italians, and eastern Europeans. These people existed harmoniously, so Kennedy was not exposed to a racial identity crisis until she entered Ohio State University in Columbus in 1949. There she felt isolated and inferior. Columbus’s restaurants were still segregated, and there was little interaction between Blacks and Whites. By the time she graduated in 1953, her anger and detestation of prejudice had eaten away at her in ways that would shape her writing career.
Kennedy married Joseph Kennedy shortly after graduation and followed him to New York City, where they both attended Columbia University. She studied creative writing from 1954 until 1956. In 1958, she studied at the American Theatre Wing, then at the New School of Social Research, and finally at Edward Albee’s Circle-in-the-Square School in 1962, where she was the only African American student. Her first and best-known play, Funnyhouse of a Negro, was first produced through a workshop at Circle-in-the-Square in 1962. Albee was impressed by the play and arranged for its production in 1964 at the off-Broadway East End Theatre. Funnyhouse of a Negro was a critical and popular success, became a cult favorite among theatergoers, and garnered a 1964 Obie Award. Albee’s encouragement and the success of her first play led to Kennedy’s continuing her writing career.
By 2015, Kennedy had written over twenty plays, two of which were with her son, Adam Kennedy. She has published fiction, a memoir, a novella, and several essays. Her most recent play, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box was published in 2018.
Kennedy has won two Obie Awards: Her first, in 1964, was for Distinguished Play for Funnyhouse of a Negro and her second was in 1996 for Best New American Play for June and Jean in Concern and Sleep Deprivation Chamber. She has been awarded several grants including two Rockefeller Foundation grants (1967 and 1970), a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1972). In 2003 Ohio State University awarded her with an honorary doctorate degree, and in 2006 she won a PEN Theater Award. In 2008, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Obie Awards and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2022 at the age of ninety, she won the Gold Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as her work Ohio State Murders (1991) made its way to the Broadway stage for the first time. In 2023, Kennedy was honored by the New York Drama Critics Circle with a special citation and, that same year, her Collected Plays and Other Writings were published in the Library of America series, which publishes classic American literature.
Kennedy's drama examines the inner struggles people encounter as they cope with their identities in relation to the outside forces that confront them. Her plays are essentially without plot. Her leading characters have multiple personalities, reflecting aspects of their identities. She relies heavily on the use of masks, each reflecting the different identities of her characters and suggesting elements of African art and culture as well.
Bibliography
Als, Hilton. "Girl Talk: La Mama Celebrates the Pioneering Work of Adrienne Kennedy." New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2014, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/girl-talk-5. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Benston, Kimberly W. “Cities in Bezique: Adrienne Kennedy’s Expressionistic Vision.” CLA Journal, vol. 20, no. 2, 1976, pp. 235-44.
Blau, Herbert. “The American Dream in American Gothic: The Plays of Sam Shepard and Adrienne Kennedy.” Modern Drama, vol. 27, no. 4, 1984, pp. 520–39, doi.org/10.3138/md.27.4.520. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Brown, Scott. "At 91, Adrienne Kennedy Is Finally on Broadway. What Took So Long?" The New York Times Style Magazine, 2 Dec. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/t-magazine/adrienne-kennedy-broadway.html. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Bryant-Jackson, Paul, and Lois More Overbeck, editors. Intersecting Boundaries: The Theatre of Adrienne Kennedy. U of Minnesota P, 1992.
Curb, Rosemary. “Fragmented Selves in Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro and The Owl Answers.” Theater Journal, vol. 32, 1980, pp. 180–95.
Kennedy, Adrienne. “A Growth of Images.” Tulane Drama Review, vol. 21, 1977, pp. 41–47.
Kennedy, Canaan. “Adrienne Kennedy.” Dramatists Guild, 1 Jan. 2023, www.dramatistsguild.com/thedramatist/adrienne-kennedy. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Kolin, Philip C. Understanding Adrienne Kennedy. U of South Carolina P, 2005.
McDonough, Carla J. “God and the Owls: The Sacred and the Profane in Adrienne Kennedy’s The Owl Answers.” Modern Drama, vol. 40, 1997, pp. 385–402, doi.org/10.1353/mdr.1997.0050. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Meigs, Susan. “No Place but the Funnyhouse: The Struggle for Identity in Three Adrienne Kennedy Plays.” Modern Drama: The Female Canon, edited by June Schlueter, Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1990.
Sollors, Werner. “Owls and Rats in the American Funnyhouse: Adrienne Kennedy’s Drama.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, vol. 63, 1991, pp. 507–32.
Spencer, Jenny. "Emancipated Spectatorship in Adrienne Kennedy's Plays." Modern Drama, vol. 55, no. 1, 2012, pp. 19–39, doi.org/10.1353/mdr.2012.0012. Accessed 15 Apr. 2023.
Zinman, Toby Silverman. “‘In the Presence of Mine Enemies’: Adrienne Kennedy’s An Evening with Dead Essex.” Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present, vol. 6, 1991, pp. 3–13.