Why The Kentucky Cycle Matters Today: A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winner Robert Schenkkan

Article by Kelsey Tomlinson

Western Reserve Playhouse is excited to bring you The Kentucky Cycle as you've never seen it before! Prior to presenting the cycle in its entirety on December 5 & 6, we are bringing it to our stage in an episodic format throughout the season. We can't wait for you to join us for this yearlong theatrical event. 

In anticipation of this unprecedented adventure, we had the opportunity to chat with playwright Robert Schenkkan about his inspirations, career, and thoughts on the future of theatre. Please enjoy this conversation with Robert Schenkkan:

Since we are producing an O'Neill play this year, and specifically one surviving from his own failed American history and family cycle of plays, were there any specific Eugene O'Neill influences on The Kentucky Cycle? If so, what were they? 

KC is influenced by O'Neill only in the sense that, like so many writers, I am constantly inspired by: a.) his life-long willingness to experiment with form and style, including the Epic and b.) his specific embrace of Tragedy; his willingness to go deep. 

Where did the format for your cycle come from? Did the plays come first and then the whole cycle format, or was the design that each of the plays be worked into a larger structure present from the beginning?

Initially, I imagined three plays, a very tidy beginning, middle, and end. But as I wrote, the story kept getting bigger. It became clear to me that the Audience would never really understand A, if they hadn't previously experienced X, Y, and Z. After I had written what would be play number #6, TALL TALES, and play #1, MASTERS OF THE TRADE (in that order), I sat down and actually wrote an outline for the entire Cycle which became the nine plays we now all know. I should mention, I was supported in this critical early process by the Mark Taper Forum, then headed by Gordon Davidson. The Taper gave me a two year commission at the end of which, I had a ten day workshop of the then first draft of the complete Cycle. Later, a critical grant from the Fund for New American Plays made the world premier production at Seattle's Intiman Theater possible.

Have you ever spent any time in Northeast Ohio? If so, have you seen any plays and do you recall what they were and where? 

As a young Actor, I once had summer work as an intern at the Kenley Players in Gambier, Ohio. This was classic summer stock in its heyday and I worked on THE RAINMAKER with Bert Reynalds [sic], 1776 with Joel Grey, CAN CAN with Ann Miller, and many more. A very educational summer to say the least. 

In your author's note for The Cycle, you mention how when you first visited your buddy's part of Appalachian in the early 1980s, one of the things you noticed was that the "poverty was extraordinary." When I find myself thinking about the life of the United States of America I find myself focusing on the obvious gap between the wealth and the poverty in the country, all the way from the very beginning. It feels a part of our genetics in a way. Do you feel that Appalachia's relationship with poverty has changed at all since composing the Kentucky Cycle? 

Whenever I talk about my experience in Appalachia I am careful to point out that I could just as easily have had this experience of, and epiphany about, US poverty in NYC, or East St. Louis, the east side of Chicago, the Rio Grande Valley, East LA, etc. I just happened to have it in Kentucky. I also think I was especially primed for this experience emotionally because my wife and I had earlier experienced a stillbirth of our first child. And then here I was, months later, touring Eastern Kentucky with a Pediatrician and experiencing the poverty and the environmental/medical crisis from the point of view of how this impacted the most vulnerable among us, the children. The one thing that I will say that was unique about Eastern Kentucky was the dramatic landscape which teetered between these incredibly beautiful old mountains, and then the shocking environmental devastation wrought by open pit mining and mountaintop removal mining which utterly destroyed this same landscape.

What roles do you think the 'Myth of the Frontier' and the 'Myth of Escape' play in America in 2026? 

They are very much alive and well. The current Administration's quite obvious attempt to rewrite American history is a callback to the Myth of the Frontier with a strong whiff of White Nationalism. And also in the shocking ways in which we have seen politician after politician, suddenly, dramatically, and shamelessly "reinvent" themselves, their public policies and even their personal morality, in fealty to President Trump has been eye-opening. Here is American Reinvention writ large and tragic.

What were the influences or other plays that first gave you the itch to pursue this art form? 

Shakespeare (especially the "History Plays'), the Oresteia, pretty much anything by O'Neil but especially, LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, and also Peter Weis's MARAT/SADE.

What are your thoughts on the future of theatre? On the role of live performance in our lives? Do you think we are destined to take up, discover, and create new forms that suit the modern world, or is the art of theatre threatened and in danger from the modern world? 

In this Digital World where these pernicious algorithms keep us tethered to our devices and isolated from each other, from our real-world communities, I think Theater is more important than ever. Sitting in a room with a group of strangers watching a story being told in real time by live actors is an incredibly satisfying experience. It builds and nurtures community. It's not a surprise that the same little Greek city state which invented Democracy, also invented Theater. But as Theater Artists today we face some powerful headwinds. When our audience has so many "entertainment options" we can't be lackadaisical. We have to reach out and meet the Audience where they are. Are we telling stories that matter to them? Are we creating spaces in which they feel both safe and challenged? And affordable? (I'm thinking here, specifically of my community in NYC where the Bway and Off-Bway ticket costs are ridiculous.) The technical ways in which we tell theater will continue to evolve. I am currently working on a project with some Portuguese collaborators which includes using motion picture techniques like Motion Capture, on stage. I think this can be an exciting event - as long as I keep the human center of the story first and foremost.  In short, the challenges to Theater post-Covid are real but the need for what we have to offer has also never been greater.

Best,

Robert Schenkkan.

Sag Harbor. 2.25.26