The Kentucky Cycle

The Kentucky Cycle
Written by	Robert Schenkkan
Date premiered	1991
Place premiered	Intiman Theatre Seattle, Washington
Original language	English
Subject	An epic of three families spanning 200 years of American history, in Kentucky
Genre	Drama
Setting	Kentucky, 1775-1975

The Kentucky Cycle is a series of nine one-act plays by Robert Schenkkan that explores American mythology, particularly the mythology of the West, through the intertwined histories of three fictional families struggling over a portion of land in the Cumberland Plateau. The play won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The Kentucky Cycle was the result of several years of development, starting in New York City at New Dramatists and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. The two-part, six-hour epic was further developed at the Taper Lab New Work Festival Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum and the Sundance Institute.

The complete cycle of short plays had its world premiere in June 1991 at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington. It was produced as part of the Mark Taper Forum's 25th Anniversary Season on January 18, 1992.

The play was awarded the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the first time in the history of the award that a play was so honored which had not first been presented in New York City. (This feat would be repeated in 2003 with Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics.The Kentucky Cycle also won both the PEN Centre West and the 1993 L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.

In 1993 it was produced at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The play opened on Broadway on November 14, 1993 at the Royale Theatre and closed on December 12, 1993 after 33 performances and 15 previews. It was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award, as well as three Tony Awards. Confronted by the massive Tony success of its Pulitzer successor, Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, the production failed to garner a single award.

...
Wikipedia