Adrienne Kennedy:

An Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Center

Biographical Sketch

Playwright and educator Adrienne Kennedy, the daughter of Cornell Wallace Hawkins and Etta Haugabook Hawkins, was born on September 13, 1931, in Pittsburgh, PA. Kennedy grew up in Cleveland, OH, where her parents moved four years after her birth. She received her B.A. from Ohio State University in 1952, and married Joseph C. Kennedy on May 15, 1953, with whom she had two sons, Joseph Jr. and Adam. After moving to New York, Kennedy studied creative writing at Columbia University (1954-1956), American Theatre Wing (1958), and later with Edward Albee at Circle-in-the-Square School (1962). She has also taught creative writing at Yale University, Princeton University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Davis.

Kennedy is an African-American dramatist whose early works utilize a surrealist perspective. Though she has mentioned Tennessee Williams and Federico García Lorca as two of her favorite playwrights, at least one critic has noted a kinship with Jean Cocteau in certain of her works. Her richly symbolic plays deal with racial, sexual, and religious themes, and are often "disarmingly autobiographical." Kennedy calls her plays "states of mind," written while images "fiercely pound in (her) head." Frequently the characters and images that appear in her plays are drawn from the mythical and historical past, or from her own memories and dreams. The landscape of her plays has been peopled by figures as unlikely as Queen Victoria, Leonardo da Vinci, Jesus Christ, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Galileo, Beethoven, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Shelley Winters, and even rats (in A Rat's Mass, inspired by a particularly vivid dream). Powerful African and African-American figures in her work include Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, and sniper James Essex.

Kennedy's best known play, Funnyhouse of a Negro, was begun in 1961 while traveling in Africa, and was the first of her plays to be produced. It opened off-Broadway in 1964 with great success and won an Obie Award. During the next several years, Kennedy was the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants (Guggenheim, Rockefeller, National Endowment for the Arts, etc.), writing a number of plays, most of which were professionally produced in major theaters in the United States and Europe. Among her plays are The Owl Answers (1963), A Rat's Mass (1966), The Lennon Play: in His Own Write (1967), Lesson in a Dead Language (1968), A Beast's Story (1969), An Evening with Dead Essex (1973), and A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976). Her more recent plays include She Talks to Beethoven (1989) and Ohio State Murders (1990). She has also written children's plays ( Black Children's Day and A Lancashire Lad, both 1980), a novella ( Deadly Triplets, 1990), and a memoir ( People Who Led to My Plays, 1987).

Two collections of her plays, Adrienne Kennedy in One Act (1988) and The Alexander Plays (1992), have been published.

Scope and Contents

The papers of Adrienne Kennedy, ca. 1954-1992, document her evolution from an aspiring writer to a successful playwright. The collection has been arranged into two series, Works, ca. 1954-1992 (6.5 boxes) and Career Papers, ca. 1963-1992 (2.5 boxes). The dominant Works series consists of Kennedy's manuscripts for plays, short stories, memoirs, and novels, though film and television projects are also present. The Career Papers contribute to further knowledge of and understanding of Kennedy and her work through award certificates, biographical data, contracts, correspondence, manuscripts and publications about Adrienne Kennedy, production materials from her plays, publicity, reviews, royalty statements, and sound and video recordings.

All of Kennedy's plays are represented in this collection, from her Obie Award winning Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) to her most recent production, Ohio State Murders (1992). Additionally, manuscripts for several unproduced or incomplete plays are present: "Letters,""Starring Galileo,""Film Festival,""Manhattan Mystery Comedy," and an untitled play about George Jackson. Manuscripts dating from Kennedy's beginnings as a writer in the 1950s include the plays The "Pale Blue Flowers,""The Tiger and the Tomboy," and "The Virgin Maggie." There are also several short story and novel manuscripts from this early period, plus two short stories from the 1960s. Other writings in the collection include the memoir People Who Led to My Plays and film treatments and screenplays (one of which is about Robert Johnson), as well as television ideas and proposals. The works exist as notebooks, holograph and typed notes, outlines, proposals, and drafts of manuscripts, playscripts, a film treatment, and screenplays, as well as galleys, page proofs, and photocopies of publications.

The correspondence, 1963-1992, generally concerns Kennedy's career as a playwright, writer, and educator, though some correspondence is of a more personal nature. Significant correspondents include Edward Albee, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ed Bullins, Joseph Chaikin, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Gerald Freedman, Nikki Giovanni, Elizabeth Hardwick, James Earl Jones, Michael Kahn, Elia Kazan, Galt MacDermot, Theodore Mann, William Marshall, Mike Nichols, Joseph Papp, Harold Pinter, Ishmael Reed, Jerome Robbins, John Selby, Victor Spinetti, Fay Weldon, Edgar White, Audrey Wood, and others.

Documentation of various productions of Ms. Kennedy's plays, 1963-1992, is also present in the form of brochures, cast lists, clippings, contact lists, drawings, flyers, musical scores, photographs, posters, programs, publicity, rehearsal schedules, reviews, scripts, sound and video recordings, tickets, etc.

Beyond the study of Adrienne Kennedy, her work, and the production of her plays, the papers provide insight into broader topics such as African-American writers, 20th century drama, surrealism, racial identity and conflict, autobiography, and cultural influences on literary works.

Restrictions

Access

Open for research

Related Material

Administrative Information

Acquisition

Purchase (R12641), 1992

Processed by

Joan Sibley, 1994

For further information about the life and work of Adrienne Kennedy, see

Series Descriptions

Adrienne Kennedy Papers--Folder List

 Adrienne Kennedy Papers--Index of Correspondents