Dennis Kennedy (born 1940,

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, United States), is an author of books on theater and performance. He is also a playwright, director, and fiction writer. He holds dual citizenship in the USA and Ireland. His recent book on audiences, ''The Spectator and the Spectacle,'' was widely and positively reviewed.

Career

His academic career has been international in scope, ranging from Michigan to Pittsburgh to Ireland, where he was Beckett Professor of Drama in

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

(1994-2006). He is now emeritus professor and fellow at Trinity College Dublin. He has also held numerous distinguished visiting positions in universities in Pakistan, Singapore, China, Canada, and the United States. He has twice been a fellow of the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

, twice won the TLA's George Freedley Memorial Award for Theater History, and was elected to the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...

and

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

. His more than forty essays have appeared in wide-ranging publications. He has lectured around the world from London to Shanghai, and regularly gives workshops in acting Shakespeare. His own plays have been performed in New York, London, and elsewhere. Recent productions he has directed on stage include

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

Beijing, China } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and

The Caucasian Chalk Circle ''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' (german: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a b ...

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

Dublin, Ireland Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 cen ...

. His short stories appear in a number of

literary journals A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...

, including ''Confrontation'', ''

New Letters ''New Letters'', the name it has been published under since 1970, is one of the oldest literary magazines in the United States and continues to publish award-winning poems and fiction. The magazine is based in Kansas City, Missouri. History and ...

'',

Underground Voices Underground Voices is an independent American book publisher. Originally started as an online literary magazine in 2004, it expanded into a small press in 2009. In 2013, it became an independent book publisher. Underground Voices is based in Lo ...

, ''

Witness In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...

'', ''

War, Literature & the Arts ''War, Literature & the Arts'' is an American literary magazine that publishes stories, poems, essays, reviews, and visuals related to war and military affairs. It was established in 1989 and is based at the United States Air Force Academy in Color ...

'' and ''Drunken Boat''. His daughter Miranda Kennedy is a journalist and author, and his twin daughters Jessica and Megan Kennedy are dancers who direct a dance-theater company in Dublin called Junk Ensemble.

Works

Books by Kennedy include ''The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance'' (Oxford University Press, 2010, 2011), ''Shakespeare in Asia: Contemporary Performance'' with Yong Li Lan, (Cambridge University Press, 2010), which was reviewed in ''Shakespeare Quarterly'' and ''Asian Theatre Journal,'' and ''The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity'' (Cambridge, 2009). His other books are ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance'' (Oxford, 2003), ''Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance'' (Cambridge, 2001, 1993), which was reviewed in both ''Theatre Research International'' and ''Theatre Survey''. Kennedy's book ''Foreign Shakespeare'' (Cambridge, 1993), was also reviewed in ''Theatre Research International'', among other journals. His first book is ''Granville Barker and the Dream of Theatre'' (Cambridge, 1985).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, Dennis Living people 1940 births American expatriate academics 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Academics of Trinity College Dublin Writers from Cincinnati 20th-century American non-fiction writers