Jeffery Kennedy

Jeffery Kennedy is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University, where he is celebrating his 23rd year of teaching courses in interdisciplinary arts and performance. He served as the West campus artistic director from 2002-2006 and then again from 2012-2015, where he was the producer of the campus series of artistic and cultural events, which featured guest artists that included Broadway stars Donna McKechnie, Pamela Myers, acapella group Pentatonix, and Hamilton's Leslie Odom, Jr. The focus of his teaching is the elements and structures of art-making genres, concepts, and methodology used in creating interdisciplinarity art and performance. He also teaches American theatre and music history, courses in music composition, voice for the performer, and graduate courses in interdisciplinary concepts and research methodology. As a music theatre professional, he worked on production staffs for Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine and has been a music director and pianist for Broadway performers that include Pamela Myers, Carol Lawrence, and Jubilant Sykes. An award-winning composer, arranger, and producer, he has many recordings in gospel and choral music and traveled as a pianist for the Bill Gaither Trio and Gaither Vocal Band for a number of years, also accompanying vocal artists Sandi Patty, Larnelle Harris, and Michelle Pillar. While a teaching fellow at New York University, he was the founder and producer in 1998 with Lowell Swortzell of the award-winning "New Plays for Young Audiences" reading series at the Provincetown Playhouse, which continues today. In 1997-98, he designed the Playhouse’s historical gallery and has since become a recognized scholar on the Playhouse and its history. His new book on the Provincetown Players is Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players, published by University of Alabama Press, was released in January 2023. In June 2008, he launched a research website about the Playhouse, https://www.provincetownplayhouse.com, is a past president of the Eugene O'Neill International Society, and was the chair of their 2011 international conference in New York City.  He currently serves on the International Society of Susan Glaspell board.  He contributed to the centennial celebration installations of the 1913 Armory Show for the New York Historical Society, and the 2016 centennial of Eugene O'Neill's first play Bound East for Cardiff for "The Great Provincetown Summer of 1916" at the Provincetown Museum/Pilgrim Monument (curated by Sam Tager).

As a performing artist, his recent productions include Liberace! (one-man, two-act play), and End of the Rainbow (actor and pianist, character of Anthony) at Phoenix Theatre; Words and Music by Samuel Beckett and Morton Feldman (Director and performer, character of Words) for the inaugaral International Beckett Conference; six years as a music director for Phoenix Theatre’s Hormel New Works Festival; four years as the music director of the Phoenix Symphony/Phoenix Theatre concert productions of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Oliver, and "An Evening with Rodgers and Hammerstein;" and he received the 2016 AriZoni Award as Best Music Director for the Phoenix Theatre production of The Toxic Avenger and also in 2014 for their production of Avenue Q.  He most recently was music director for the Phoenix Theatre productions of Camelot (small cast version), Singin' in the Rain, Fun Home, The Scottsboro Boys, and Something Rotten.  He has conducted for Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx in a tribute concert to Ray Charles that featured a line-up of jazz all-stars and directed Arizona premiere productions that have included Passing Strange by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, Floyd Collins, and Myths and Hymns: Saturn Returns by Adam Guettel; James Joyce’s The Dead; a revue of the music of John Bucchino It's Only Life; the world premiere of Daniel Lentz’s Café Desire (also performed for the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco) and the world premiere live performance of Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration at Phoenix's Orpheum Theatre. For iTheatre Collaborative, he created, directed and performed in their Holiday Cabaret for 13 years at the Herberger Theatre Center.  He is a member of the professional actor's union Actor's Equity.  

Kennedy has a bachelor's degree in music from California State University, Fullerton, and a master's degree and doctorate in educational theatre from New York University. He has published multiple articles in the Eugene O'Neill Review and essays in books such as Visions of Tragedy in American Theatre (edited by David Palmer), Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context (edited by Linda De Roche), Eugene O'Neill's One Act Plays (edited by Michael Bennett and Benjamin Carson), Eugene O'Neill and his Contemporaries: Bohemians, Radicals, Progressives, and Lefties (edited by Robert Dowling and Eileen Herrmann), Susan Glaspell and her Contexts (edited by J. Ellen Gainor), Critical Insights: Eugene O'Neill (edited by Steven Bloom), and the Eugene O'Neill Companion (edited by Robert Dowling). He is regularly invited to speak about early 20th century plays and playwrights as well as the history of Greenwich Village for organizations such as the Newberry Library, Greenwich Village Preservation Society, and Metropolitan Playhouse (New York City). He was awarded in 2012 the Outstanding Teacher Award-Lecturer by New College and in 2015 was given the Champion of the Arts Award by the West Valley Arts Council for his work as the West campus artistic director. He was a 2020 recipient of a Fulbright Scholar's Award in London at the British Library researching his next book, an interdisciplinary American theatre history text, the first volume focusing on Colonial American theatre. He also recently appeared on the third season of the PBS show Poetry in America, hosted by Elisa New, on an episode featuring poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and has written the musical score for one of their upcoming episodes on poet Robert Lowell.