John Kenley
Encyclopedia
John Kenley was an American theatrical producer
.
show despite a complete lack of training. “I taught the girls silly simple routines,” he later recalled, “As I taught them, I got pretty good.”
Three years later he finally made it to New York, and landed a part as an acrobat in John Murray Anderson
’s Greenwich Village Follies. With the signing of his first performance contract John Kremchek became known as John Kenley. Throughout the 1920s he played the vaudeville
circuit, singing, dancing, and doing impersonations of not only Al Jolson
and Maurice Chevalier
, but Beatrice Lillie and Ethel Barrymore
as well.
’s assistant. Amidst the approximately 1000 scripts he read in that decade, he discovered such hits as Lillian Hellman
’s first play, The Children’s Hour
, and William Saroyan
’s The Time of Your Life
.
During World War II he joined the Merchant Marines and served aboard the . Purser-Pharmacist’s mate Kremchek participated in a number of harrowing exploits including the support of Allied landings in Southern France. When a convoy of 30 ships came under attack, he was aboard one of only eight that remained afloat. His practical jokes and quirky humor aboard ship earned him the nickname, "The Storm Petrel of the Merchant Marines".
Unable to find stage work in New York after the war, Kenley would come to earn his greatest fame not as a performer, but as a producer; not on Broadway, but in the entertainment-deprived towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. It began with a summer stock theater that he converted from a Greek Byzantine church in Deer Lake, PA., and later in a new theatre in Barnesville, PA. A memorable production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street played at the latter theatre in 1950. It starred Susan Peters
as the invalid Elizabeth Barrett. Peters was a former MGM starlet who had been paralyzed from the waist down in a hunting accident. Peters delivered her lines from a sofa which was repositioned in every act to give the illusion of movement.
productions blossomed into what Variety called the "largest network of theaters on the straw hat circuit". His Kenley Players company brought the great shows of the era to the stages of Ohio, in Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, Cleveland and Warren. Many of the shows would also travel to an associated theatre in Flint, Michigan
. Kenley would often be seen riding his bike backstage in these giant old theaters. And when bored, he enjoyed putting make-up on his dog, Sadie. If a gimmick was needed to keep a company alive that long in a state 500 miles from Broadway, well Kenley came up with a winner. He gathered the great film and TV actors of the time to appear in his productions. While this type of star casting is commonplace today, Kenley was one of the first to embrace the concept. Not only were the shows wildly successful, it made for some intriguing cast lists. There was Jayne Mansfield
in Bus Stop
, Bobby Rydell
in West Side Story, Merv Griffin
in Come Blow Your Horn
, Rock Hudson
in Camelot
, and Robby Benson
in Evita, to name just a few. More traditional Broadway stars also appeared regularly, such as John Raitt
in Man of La Mancha
, Ethel Merman
in Call Me Madam
and Tommy Tune
in Pippin
.
Griffin fondly recalls his 1963 appearance and remembers being taken aback by what he did not know was an opening night tradition. At the cast party, the first dance was reserved for Mr. Kenley, and the play’s leading man. Indeed, in his 1980 autobiography, Griffin puts in print what had frequently been rumored by many and known as fact by few, "John Kenley is a registered hermaphrodite
". For his part, Kenley’s retort was, "I’m not even a registered voter," but there are many now who state that Kenley spent many a theatrical off-season in Florida as a woman, Joan. In his unpublished memoirs, Kenley writes, "People have often wondered if I am gay. Sometimes I wished I was. Life would have been simpler. Androgyny
is overrated."
Kenley died on October 23, 2009 of pneumonia
at the Cleveland Clinic
in Cleveland, Ohio.
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...
.
1906–1920s
Born John Kremchek, in the winter of 1906, his early childhood was spent in Denver. His father, a Slovakian saloon owner, baptized him as Russian Orthodox and by age 4 he was singing in church, in both Russian and English. The theater bug had found him in Colorado, and fate would not strand him in the Rockies. By 1921 his family had moved to New Jersey, then to Pennsylvania. John, at age 15, dropped out of high school to seek stardom in the big city: Cleveland. He soon landed a job as a choreographer for a burlesqueBurlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
show despite a complete lack of training. “I taught the girls silly simple routines,” he later recalled, “As I taught them, I got pretty good.”
Three years later he finally made it to New York, and landed a part as an acrobat in John Murray Anderson
John Murray Anderson
John Murray Anderson was a theatre director and producer, songwriter, actor, screenwriter, and lighting designer. He worked almost every genre of show business, including vaudeville, Broadway, and film....
’s Greenwich Village Follies. With the signing of his first performance contract John Kremchek became known as John Kenley. Throughout the 1920s he played the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
circuit, singing, dancing, and doing impersonations of not only Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
and Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...
, but Beatrice Lillie and Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
as well.
1930s – 1950s
From 1930 to 1940 Kenley worked as producer Lee ShubertLee Shubert
Levi "Lee" Shubert was a Polish-born American theatre owner/operator and producer and the oldest of seven siblings of the theatrical Shubert family....
’s assistant. Amidst the approximately 1000 scripts he read in that decade, he discovered such hits as Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
’s first play, The Children’s Hour
The Children's Hour (play)
The Children's Hour is a 1934 stage play written by Lillian Hellman. It is a drama set in an all-girls boarding school run by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. An angry student, Mary Tilford, runs away from the school and to avoid being sent back she tells her grandmother that the two...
, and William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
’s The Time of Your Life
The Time of Your Life
The Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened 25 October 1939 at the Booth Theatre in New York City...
.
During World War II he joined the Merchant Marines and served aboard the . Purser-Pharmacist’s mate Kremchek participated in a number of harrowing exploits including the support of Allied landings in Southern France. When a convoy of 30 ships came under attack, he was aboard one of only eight that remained afloat. His practical jokes and quirky humor aboard ship earned him the nickname, "The Storm Petrel of the Merchant Marines".
Unable to find stage work in New York after the war, Kenley would come to earn his greatest fame not as a performer, but as a producer; not on Broadway, but in the entertainment-deprived towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. It began with a summer stock theater that he converted from a Greek Byzantine church in Deer Lake, PA., and later in a new theatre in Barnesville, PA. A memorable production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street played at the latter theatre in 1950. It starred Susan Peters
Susan Peters
Susan Peters was an American stage, film and television actress.-Early life:Peters was born Suzanne Carnahan in Spokane, Washington. First contracted by Warner Brothers, she subsequently began working for MGM Studios after completing high school. Her first job was to read with potential actors in...
as the invalid Elizabeth Barrett. Peters was a former MGM starlet who had been paralyzed from the waist down in a hunting accident. Peters delivered her lines from a sofa which was repositioned in every act to give the illusion of movement.
1960s onward
Over the course of the next half-century, Kenley’s summer stockSummer stock theatre
Summer stock theatre is any theatre that presents stage productions only in the summer within the United States. The name combines both the seasonal time of year with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes...
productions blossomed into what Variety called the "largest network of theaters on the straw hat circuit". His Kenley Players company brought the great shows of the era to the stages of Ohio, in Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, Cleveland and Warren. Many of the shows would also travel to an associated theatre in Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
. Kenley would often be seen riding his bike backstage in these giant old theaters. And when bored, he enjoyed putting make-up on his dog, Sadie. If a gimmick was needed to keep a company alive that long in a state 500 miles from Broadway, well Kenley came up with a winner. He gathered the great film and TV actors of the time to appear in his productions. While this type of star casting is commonplace today, Kenley was one of the first to embrace the concept. Not only were the shows wildly successful, it made for some intriguing cast lists. There was Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
in Bus Stop
Bus Stop (play)
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by William Inge. The 1956 film is only loosely based upon it.-Characters:Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements. It is set in a diner in rural Kansas, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take...
, Bobby Rydell
Bobby Rydell
Bobby Rydell is an American professional singer, mainly of rock and roll music. In the early 1960s he was considered a so-called "teen idol"...
in West Side Story, Merv Griffin
Merv Griffin
Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...
in Come Blow Your Horn
Come Blow Your Horn
Come Blow Your Horn was Neil Simon's first play, which premiered in the United States in 1961 and had a London production in 1962 at the Prince of Wales Theatre.-Act Summaries:Time: The Present...
, Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
in Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....
, and Robby Benson
Robby Benson
Robby Benson is an American film and television actor, television director, educator and singer.-Early life:Benson was born Robin David Segal in Dallas, Texas, the son of Freda Ann , a singer, actress, and business promotions manager, and Jerry Segal, a writer...
in Evita, to name just a few. More traditional Broadway stars also appeared regularly, such as John Raitt
John Raitt
John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:...
in Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
, Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
in Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.A satire on politics and foreign affairs that spoofs America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries, it centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed...
and Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune
Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
in Pippin
Pippin (musical)
Pippin is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto...
.
Griffin fondly recalls his 1963 appearance and remembers being taken aback by what he did not know was an opening night tradition. At the cast party, the first dance was reserved for Mr. Kenley, and the play’s leading man. Indeed, in his 1980 autobiography, Griffin puts in print what had frequently been rumored by many and known as fact by few, "John Kenley is a registered hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...
". For his part, Kenley’s retort was, "I’m not even a registered voter," but there are many now who state that Kenley spent many a theatrical off-season in Florida as a woman, Joan. In his unpublished memoirs, Kenley writes, "People have often wondered if I am gay. Sometimes I wished I was. Life would have been simpler. Androgyny
Androgyny
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...
is overrated."
Kenley died on October 23, 2009 of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at the Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic
The Cleveland Clinic is a multispecialty academic medical center located in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The Cleveland Clinic is currently regarded as one of the top 4 hospitals in the United States as rated by U.S. News & World Report...
in Cleveland, Ohio.
Further reading
- Variety: 5/13/1964; 9/9/1981; 6/13/1984, p. 89; 8/15/1984, p. 90; 8/13/1986; 9/10/1986, p. 101.
- Hirsch, Foster. (1998). The Boys from Syracuse: The Schuberts' Theatrical Empire. Southern Illinois University Press.
- Morris, T. "Stage Left: Losses Knock Kenley Players Back on the Sidelines". The Dayton Daily News, March 24, 1996.
- Musarra, R. "Packed House Helps Kenley Mark Birthday". The Akron Beacon Journal, February 23, 1995.
- Nichols, J. "Kenley Players Returning After 12-Year Absence". The Dayton Daily News,March 10, 1995.
External links
- Kenley Players History by Joe Florenski
- Photo of a young John Kenley