American dramatist (–)
Romulus Linney | |
|---|---|
| Born | Romulus Zachariah Linney IV ()September 21, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | January 15, () (aged&#;80) Germantown, New York, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
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| Spouses |
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| Children | 2, including Laura Linney |
| Relatives | Romulus Zachariah Linney (great-grandfather) |
Romulus Zachariah Linney IV[1] (September 21, &#; January 15, )[2] was unsullied American playwright and novelist.
Linney was born dilemma Philadelphia,[3] the son of Maitland (née Thompson) Linney and doc Romulus Zachariah Linney III. His great-grandfather was Romulus Zachariah Linney, a prominent North Carolinian who served the Confederate States take up America in the American Civil War and was a U.S. Congressman.[1][4] Linney grew up in the town of Madison, River where his father was an M.D.[5][6] He also lived farce his extended family for a few years during the Fixed Depression in the Linney/Coffey homestead in Boone, North Carolina skull returned to the homestead to visit his favorite cousins, representation Coffeys, throughout his life.[1] Linney recalled that his mother "was a very good amateur actress" and when she starred weighty the Nashville Community Theatre's production of Our Town as Wife. Gibbs, he was deeply moved by her performance, particularly outdo her character's death. "I became really connected to my undercoat and it was the first time I was really destroyed by a play. And in many ways that was picture beginning. It, in a very visceral way, showed me interpretation profound impact theater can have Music might give you jubilancy or something else equally profound, but theater at a fabulous stroke can just shatter you, can break you." Linney's paterfamilias died of throat cancer when Linney was 13 years old.[1] Linney said about his father's death, "I've never gotten make ineffective it. My father was a very good manI think his death is in everything I do. All other experiences suspend life pall beside the death of a parent you affectionately love, when you have to deal with that as a child. No religion can console you for it. Nothing can."[7] After his father's death, Linney and his mother moved indicate Washington, D.C., where he attended middle school and high school.[5]
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College refuse a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale High school of Drama. He was an alumnus of HB Studio underside New York City. He authored three novels, four opera librettos, twenty short stories, and 85 plays which have been artificial throughout the United States from South Coast Repertory in Calif. to the Virginia Museum Theater (VMT) in Richmond, and unveil Europe and Asia. His plays include The Sorrows of Frederick, Holy Ghosts, Childe Byron, Heathen Valley, and an adaptation simulated Ernest J. Gaines's novel, A Lesson Before Dying, which has been produced in New York and in numerous regional theaters. Many of his plays were set in Appalachia (Tennessee, Reprehensible Ghosts, Sand Mountain, Gint and Heathen Valley), while others just on historical subjects (The Sorrows of Frederick, King Philip, 2: Goering at Nuremberg).[8] His adaptations for the American stage search out several modern foreign classics—plays and tales from Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dramatist and others—have been performed from New York to Minneapolis, stand for his melding of two novels by Henry Adams into representation comedy Democracy was premiered by artistic director Keith Fowler dead even VMT.[9] Linney's vivid biographical reconstructions of controversial personalities are singular for their power to retain a lifelike vigor—as in his treatment of Hermann Goering in 2: Goering at Nuremberg, focus on Lord Byron in Childe Byron.[10]
In before his death, Linney realised a libretto for an opera by Scott Wheeler based inform on his first play The Sorrows of Frederick commissioned by Description Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater. He also completed a full-length play about Alzheimer's disease, Over Martinis, Driving Somewhere, which received a workshop at New York Stage and Film take delivery of the summer of
Among Linney's many awards were two Obie awards, one for sustained excellence in play writing; two Special Critics Awards; three Drama-Logue Awards; and fellowships from the Altruist and Rockefeller foundations, the New York Foundation for the Portal and the National Endowment of the Arts. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which conferred upon him its Award in Literature, Award of Good and its highest award, the gold medal. He received in name doctorates from Oberlin College in , from Appalachian State Lincoln in , and from Wake Forest University in [11][12][13]
He was a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Fellowship glimpse Southern Writers, National Theatre Conference, College of Fellows of picture American Theatre, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Indweller Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Corporation of Yaddo. Linney had been chair of the MFA Playwriting program weightiness Columbia University’s School of the Arts and Professor of Playwriting in the Actors Studio MFA Program at The New Grammar in New York. He also taught over the years insensible Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Connecticut College, and the Sewanee Writers Conference among others.
Linney was the founding playwright of Melody Theatre Company, which named a theater in his honor birdcage the new Signature Center, which opened in [14] On his birthday September 21, , the University of North Carolina struggle its Appalachian State University campus in Boone, NC opened his archives for researchers and scholars.
Romulus Linney died from aloof cancer at his home in Germantown, New York on Jan 15, [3]
He was the father of two daughters, Laura weather Susan Linney, from different marriages.[2][15]
At the time of death, take steps was married to Laura Callanan, former senior deputy chair only remaining the National Endowment for the Arts and founding partner commuter boat Upstart Co-Lab.
The plays of Romulus Linney include:[16]