Dennis Kennedy (born 1940, Cincinnati, Ohio, 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.[1][2][3]
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 (1994-2006).[4] He is now emeritus professor and fellow at Trinity College Dublin.[4] 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, twice won the TLA's George Freedley Memorial Award for Theater History,[5] and was elected to the Royal Irish Academy[6] and Academia Europaea.[7] 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.[8][9] His own plays have been performed in New York, London, and elsewhere. Recent productions he has directed on stage include As You Like It by William Shakespeare in Beijing, China and The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht in Dublin, Ireland.
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.
Kennedy, Dennis (2009). The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-89976-5.
Kennedy, Dennis (2003). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre & Performance. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-860174-6.
Kennedy, Dennis (2002). Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-78057-5.
Review: Shaw, Kate (1994). "Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance. By Dennis Kennedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xxiv + 358 + illus. £45; $69.95". Theatre Research International. 19 (2): 171–172. doi:10.1017/S0307883300019489. S2CID161523916.
Review: McMillin, Scott (May 1994). "Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performances. By Dennis Kennedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; pp. 358. 150 illustrations, 21 color plates. $69.95 hardcover. - Bit Parts in Shakespeare's Plays. By M. M. Mahood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; pp. 252. $59.95 hardcover". Theatre Survey. 35 (1): 139–142. doi:10.1017/S0040557400002611.
Kennedy, Dennis (11 November 2004). Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-61708-6.
Review: Singleton, Brian (1995). "Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance. Edited by Dennis Kennedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xviii + 311 + illus. £35; $54.95". Theatre Research International. 20 (1): 71–72. doi:10.1017/S0307883300007252. S2CID161271548.
Kennedy, Dennis (1989). Granville Barker and the Dream of Theatre. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-37996-0.
^Seamon, Mark (April 2012). "The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity. By Dennis Kennedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009; pp. x + 249. $98 cloth, $35.99 paper". Theatre Survey. 53 (1): 146–148. doi:10.1017/S0040557411000834. S2CID162764325.
^Nibbelink, Liesbeth Groot (March 2010). "The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity. By Dennis Kennedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. x + 250 + 11 illus. £50/$99 Hb. - Modes of Spectating. Edited by Alison Oddey and Christine White. Bristol: Intellect, 2009. Pp. 266 + 40 illus. £19.95/$40 Pb". Theatre Research International. 35 (1): 88–90. doi:10.1017/S0307883309990514.
