Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players
by Jeffery Kennedy
is available now at Amazon.com!
(now with a new Audible version!)
macdougalstreet.com is dedicated to the artistic and cultural legacies of the Provincetown Players, including their 47 playwrights and the history of Bohemian Greenwich Village at the beginning of the 20th century.
Visit the research site http://www.provincetownplayhouse.com
News
Kennedy presented in Manteo, NC, on Fri, July 25, about the work of playwright Paul Green
The Roanoke Island Historical Association (RIHA), producers of The Lost Colony, hosted a lecture by Jeffery Kennedy titled Paul Green: The Pathway to The Lost Colony. The lecture about Paul Green’s life and works prior to the inaugural 1937 season of The Lost Colony, took place on Friday, July 25th at 4pm at Dare Arts in Downtown Manteo. Paul Green’s play In Abraham’s Bosom was produced by the Provincetown Players in 1926, and it received Green’s only Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1927. Kennedy’s new book, Staging Experiment: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Playhouse, a companion and continuation of his first book, Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players, studies in detail Green’s prize-winning play and the playwright’s life and work, which, of course, includes Green’s outdoor symphonic drama The Lost Colony. Kennedy has done extensive research on Green’s work on The Lost Colony and on the playwright’s work before and after this monumental play, which has become a community institution. Green's commitment to racial justice and equality is a theme through much of his work before he creates the "symphonic drama." Green created The Lost Colony and sixteen more of these works, which were presented regionally throughout the US (four of them continue to be performed) and focused on regional history. The longest running of these, The Lost Colony has been performed for 88 summers in Manteo. RIHA hosted this lecture upstairs in the Courtroom Gallery in Dare Arts, which is located in the historic 1904 Dare County Courthouse, where Paul Green signed his original contract for The Lost Colony in January 1937. That evening, Kennedy attended a performance of The Lost Colony, directed by Jeff Whiting.
International Susan Glaspell Society @ ALA Conference 2025 in Boston
The International Susan Glaspell Society contributed to the 2025 American Literature Association Conference in Boston, May 27, with a staged reading of Glaspell's play Inheritors. Abridged and directed by Cheryl Black, the reading participants included Anne Fletcher, Jeff Kennedy, Andy Harper, Joseph G. Ramsey, Stuart Hecht, and Lyndsi Skewes. When Glaspell's play premiered in 1921, America was in the throes of a postwar conservative backlash, as the "100% Americanism" movement fostered attitudes of isolationism, nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and the suppression of free speech. The play centers on the impact of the movement on a college campus: students from India deported for anti-colonial activism, a student imprisoned for violating the Espionage Act, a professor pressured to keep quiet on political issues, and the political awakening of the play's central character. Described by actor-director Eva Le Gallienne as a "burning challenge to America," the play remains profoundly relevant today. The reading was followed by a robust discussion of the play and its themes.
Glaspell and O'Neill Societies Contribute to ALA Conference in Chicago
Both the International Susan Glaspell Society and the Eugene O'Neill International Society were contributors to the 2024 American Literature Association Conference held in Chicago at the Palmer House Hotel May 22-25. The Glaspell Society had a panel of research papers given by members of the Society and scholars of Glaspell, which included Emiline Jouve, J. Ellen Gainor, and Martha Carpentier, and Jeff Kennedy served as moderator. Jouve's paper was titled "Susan Glaspell's Politics of Reception," Gainor's was "Susan Glaspell's Cherished and Shared of Old as a Wartime Narrative," and Carpentier's was "Glaspell's Mothers." On Saturday afternoon, May 25, members of the Society presented a staged dramatic reading of a new adaptation for the stage of Glaspell's novel, Ambrose Holt and Family, brilliantly adapted by Cheryl Black. A discussion with the audience followed both events.
The Eugene O'Neill Society presented a panel of papers that featured Lori Cassels with a paper titled "January 22, 1918: Pivotal Night of Eugene O'Neill and Dorothy Day" on the suicide of Louis Holladay, one of O'Neill's closest friends, which Cassels is writing a play about. Eric Fraisher Hayes, artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, presented a talk on adapting, reimagining, and reclaiming O'Neill's play. Jeffery Kennedy gave a paper titled "Eugene O'Neill and the Experimental Theatre, Inc: A New Direction in the Provincetown Playhouse," discussing the differences between the Provincetown Players and the new theatre company begun by O'Neill, Kenneth Macgowan, and Robert Edmond Jones in 1924. The panel was moderated by Deane Brannen-Jurgenson.
New Audible version of "Staging America" Released
May 7, 2024 - Though we had talked about doing this, the publisher of "Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players" surprised me today by releasing an Audible version and an Audio CD. Though the book, at 640 pages, can appear daunting, having it in these forms may encourage you to try it! I'm grateful they felt it was worth producing, and the actor they used to read the book is outstanding and easy to understand. If you have Audible already, just search the title of the book, and it "costs" one credit. Otherwise, you can purchase it at the book's Amazon page at https://shorturl.at/W8VkB
"Poetry in America" episode on Robert Lowell
April 11, 2024 - After appearing last season as a scholar on an episode of PBS's "Poetry in America" about Edna St. Vincent Millay, I have had the incredible pleasure of writing the musical score for an episode this year. "July in Washington" is a poem by the talented but tortured poet laureate of the US for many years, Robert Lowell. The episode airs on AZ PBS on Thurs, April 25 @ 9:30 pm (look for around the same date outside of AZ for this episode) and features a unique blend of scholars. You will recognize Washington DC journalists and staffers, including Sir Jonathan Bate from Oxford and now ASU, Andrea Mitchell from NBC, and David Axelrod, a CNN contributor who worked in the Obama White House.
The show is written and hosted by the brilliant Lisa New. Phoenix's own Dave Coolidge, Christina Steffan, and Joshua Gardner play flawlessly on the score, to whom I am grateful for sharing their musical talents. I am so happy to be able to share this with you, and I hope you can watch it!
For more information about "Poetry in America" and this episode, go to their website at this https://www.poetryinamerica.org/.