Robert Patrick (playwright)
| Robert Patrick | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Robert Patrick O'Connor September 27, 1937 Kilgore, Texas, U.S.A |
| Nationality | American |
| Information | |
| Period | 1960s–present |
| Genre | Dramas, comedies, musicals |
| Notable work(s) | Kennedy's Children, Camera Obscura |
Robert Patrick (born September 27, 1937) is an American playwright, poet, lyricist, short-story writer and novelist. He was born Robert Patrick O'Connor in Kilgore, Texas, United States.
Robert Patrick was born to migrant workers in Texas. Because his parents moved around the Southwestern United States constantly, looking for work, he never went to one school for an entire year until his senior year of high school in Roswell, New Mexico. The only cultural constants in his life were books, film and radio. His mother made sure he learned to read, and arranged that he start school a year early. Lacking social contacts due to constant displacement, he always made poor grades, and dropped out of college after two years. Having experienced no live theatre except a few school shows, he fell in love with stage work while washing dishes at the Kennebunkport Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine one summer. Stopping off in New York on his way back to Roswell, he stumbled into the Caffe Cino, the first underground or Off-Off Broadway theatre, on September 14, 1961. He remained there working for free in any required capacity, supporting himself with temporary typing jobs while observing and participating in the production of dozens of plays, including So Long at the Fair by Lanford Wilson. Having long been a poet, in 1964 he got an idea for a play he called The Haunted Host, and because of the casualness of the Caffe Cino, was allowed to mount it almost at once. It was something of a success, and playwriting became his main focus.
Patrick is the author of over 60 published plays.
His first play, The Haunted Host, was produced in 1964 and premiered at the Caffe Cino in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, New York. Because Patrick refused the offer of Neil Flanagan, the Caffe Cino's star performer, to play the title role (because Flanagan had recently played Lanford Wilson's gay character, Lady Bright) Patrick himself wound up appearing in the play with fellow playwright William M. Hoffman.
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