 Press Room:
The Kentucky Cycle
(Parts I & II)
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A Biography of
Robert Schenkkan
 Born in 1953, Robert Schenkkan wrote the The
Kentucky Cycle after a trip to the Appalachian mountains in the early
1980s. There he was impressed by the rugged beauty of nature and the utter
devastation that strip-mining had brought to the landscape. Schenkkan was
also struck by the great divide between rich and poor in such a compact area
as eastern Kentucky. He says that he began writing The Kentucky Cycle
in 1984 as a wedding present to his wife. The cycle of plays grew into a
tale about America from its “discovery” by Europeans to its “rediscovery” in
the 1960s. Schenkkan originally began his career as an actor,
appearing in films with Christian Slater and episodes of Star Trek: The
Next Generation, but he soon discovered his talents for writing and
scripting. His plays have won multiple awards and critical acclaim. He won
the Julie Harris/Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Award in 1989 for Heaven on
Earth, the L.A. Weekly’s Critic’s Choice Award for Tachinoki,
and a “Best of Fringe” award at the Edinburgh Festival for The
Survivalist. He has also written screenplays for Oliver Stone, Denzel
Washington, and Ron Howard.
The Kentucky Cycle
won Schenkkan the largest grant ever presented by the Kennedy Center for New
American Plays and broke box office records when it premiered in Seattle in
1991. In 1992, he made history when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Best
Drama, the first time a play had won the Pulitzer without having first
played on Broadway. After the Pulitzer Prize, it was also nominated for
Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards.
The Kentucky Cycle
has become more than just a series of plays for its author. Schenkkan sees
this work as a metaphor for how America works. It has also become his
statement on the functioning of the American Dream. He originally
envisioned one or two plays, four at the most, but as he wrote the story got
bigger and bigger until it was a full seven hours long, with nine plays,
spanning over 200 years. Schenkkan wanted his epic play cycle to reflect
the beauty, the reality, and the brutality of modern American life.
Synopsis of 'The Kentucky Cycle,' Parts
1 & 2
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Archives
A Day in
Hollywood
Nunsense
Dearly Beloved
The Secret
Garden
Nunsensations!
Woody Guthrie's American
Song
The Odd Couple
1776
Noises OFF
Cabaret
Oliver
Deathtrap
2005
John Muir Summer Festival
Over
the Tavern
Judgment
at Nuremberg
AIDA
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