Joseph Kesselring
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Joseph Otto Kesselring (21 July 1902 – 5 November 1967) was an American writer and playwright known best for his play Arsenic and Old Lace, written in 1939 and originally entitled "Bodies in Our Cellar."
He was born in New York City in 1902 to a family of German descent. The son of a surgeon, Kesselring spent much of his life in and around the theater. In 1922, at the age of 20, he began teaching vocal music and directed stage productions at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas. After two years of teaching, Kesselring left teaching and returned to the stage, working for two years with an amateur theatrical group in Niagara, New York. He began working as a freelance playwright in 1933, completing 12 original plays, of which four were produced on Broadway: Wisdom in Women (1935), Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), Four Twelves are 48 (1951), and Mother of that Wisdom (1963).
Kesselring died in Kingston, New York.
In 1980, the National Arts Club created the Joseph Kesselring Prize for up-and-coming playwrights, funded by Kesselring's widow, Charlotte. Among the playwrights to have won this prize are Tony Kushner, Anna Deavere Smith, David Auburn, Rajiv Joseph, Melissa James Gibson, Jo Carson, Nicky Silver, David Lindsay-Abaire, Jose Rivera, Heather McDonald, Philip Kan Gotanda, Kira Obolensky, Tracey Scott Wilson, and Marion McClinton.
