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Get to Know…Romulus Linney
Award-Winning Playwright
 Romulus
Linney, whose acclaimed plays have captured the spectrum of American
life, from the soul of his native Appalachia to contemporary New York
City, is the recipient of the William Inge Theatre Festival’s 2003
Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award.
The Festival will be held April 9-12, in Independence, Kansas, at
Independence Community College.
“We are very excited to honor a playwright with a truly American
voice. Linney’s prodigious work is greatly revered by his fellow
playwrights,” said Peter Ellenstein, Director of the William Inge
Theatre Festival, which is held annually at Independence Community
College, in Independence, Kansas. “Fifteen of our past honored
playwrights helped choose this year’s honoree, and yet Linney’s name
is still not familiar to most Americans. We hope this well-deserved
honor helps, in a small way, to introduce more of the public to
Linney’s unique contributions to the American Theatre.”
“Mr. Linney continues to be one of our most perceptive chroniclers of
the folkways of rural America, finding humanity and nobility in the
most remote of places,” remarks long-time New York Times critic Mel
Gussow. Linney’s 13 full-length and 22 short plays are predominantly
set in rural locales: “Tennessee”
chronicles the fortitude of early Appalachian settlers; “Heathen
Valley,” an adaptation of his 1962 novel, delves into the role that
faith plays in the lives of people in the same region. In “FM,” a
small Alabama college suddenly finds itself hosting a genius. Each of
his works is renowned for its lyrical qualities, particularly in the
ability to capture the nuance and richness of ordinary speech.
Some Linney plays take place in quite different settings. Linney’s
simply titled “2” examines Nazi strongman Herman Goering during the
Nuremburg trials. In “Childe Byron,” the dying daughter of 19th
century poet Lord Byron clashes with her estranged father. And in
“April Snow,” an aging screenwriter takes a bittersweet look at his
life and loves.
While his shows have been performed in the world’s major cities,
Linney has remarked that most “are not urban
in content” and “it has been in theaters across my country, some
large, some modest, that these plays have had the most appeal and have
been artistically best understood.”
Just some of Linney’s honors include National Critics Award laurels
for Best Plays of the Year (1987-88 for “Heathen Valley” and 1989-90
for “2”) and Time Magazine’s selection of his comic evening of
one-acts “Laughing Stock” as one of the ten best plays of 1984. He has
received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as
well as Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and National Foundation for the Arts
grants, the 1984 Award in Literature from the American Academy of
Institute of Arts and Letters, and a 1992 Obie Award for Sustained
Excellence in Playwriting. He is a member of the Ensemble Studio
Theatre and the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
The William Inge Theatre Festival, in its 22nd year, is named for the
late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Inge, himself a native
of Independence and a former student at Independence Community College.
Author of “Picnic,” “Bus Stop,” and “Splendor in the Grass,” among
others, Inge is one of America’s finest playwrights. Now, in addition
to a four-day festival that annually transforms Independence, Kansas,
into the center of the theatrical universe, the festival sponsors
activities year-round. Most notable is the Festival’s
playwrights-in-residence program, which brings to Independence
professional playwrights who live in Inge’s boyhood home while working
on new plays and teaching at the College and in the community.
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