John Kenley

Infobox Person
name = John Kenley
image_size = 225px
caption = John Kenley and friend, late 1970’s. Photo by Ott Gangl. Used with permission.
birth_date = birth date and age|1906|2|20
birth_place = Denver, Colorado, United States
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = Theatrical producer

John Kenley (born February 20, 1906) is an American former theatrical producer.

1906 – 1920’s

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 burlesque 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.” (Grossberg 2004).

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 (Variety, 1974). With the signing of his first performance contract John Kremchek became known as John Kenley. Throughout the 1920’s 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.

1930 – 1950’s

From 1930 to 1940 Kenley worked as producer Lee Shubert’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 SS|Andrew Furuseth. 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”(Dayton Daily News, 1975).

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 summerstock theater that he converted from a Greek Byzantine church in Deer Lake, PA. A memorable production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street played there in 1950. It starred Susan Peters, 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, at least, the illusion of movement.

1960’s Onward

Over the course of the next half-century, Kenley’s productions blossomed into what Variety pegged as the “largest network of theaters on the strawhat circuit” (Variety 1983). His Kenley Players became Ohio’s lifeline to the American Musical, bringing the great shows of the era to the stages of 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 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 and Robbie Benson in Evita to name just a few. More traditional Broadway stars also appeared regularly, such as John Raitt in Man of La Mancha, 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” (Griffin 1980). For his part, Kenley’s retort was, “I’m not even a registered voter,” (Morris 1995) but there are many now who state as gospel 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." (Morris 1995).

Works cited

*cite news | title = Around Town with B.W. | work = Dayton Daily News | date = 1975-07-28
*cite news | title = (unknown) | work = Variety | date = 1974-03-20 | page = 73
*cite news | title = (unknown) | work = Variety | date = 1983-08-31 | page = 110
*cite news | last = Grossberg | first = M. | title = The Echoes of Applause | work = The Columbus Dispatch | date = 2004-04-18
*cite news | last = Morris | first = T. | title = John Kenley; on with the show | work = Dayton Daily News | date = 1995-07-14

External links

* [http://www.kenleyplayershistory.com Kenley Players History]
* [http://home.columbus.rr.com/paullynde/kenley2.htm The Kenley Players - The Ohio Years, 1957-1995 by Joe Florenski]
* [http://home.neo.rr.com/ottmar/theater.htm Ott Gangl’s archive of Kenley production photos]
* [http://www.actorsequity.org/TheatreNews/archive/04_2_25_kenley.html Photo of a young John Kenley]

Further reading

Anonymous. Variety, 5/13/1964.

Anonymous. Variety, 9/9/1981.

Anonymous. Variety, 6/13/1984, p.89.

Anonymous. Variety, 8/15/1984, p.90.

Anonymous. Variety, 8/13/1986

Anonymous. Variety, 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 'HELLO, DOLLY!' STAR TOASTS PRODUCER ON STAGE”, The Akron Beacon Journal, February 23, 1995.

Nichols, J. “KENLEY PLAYERS RETURNING AFTER 12-YEAR ABSENCE, 7 PRODUCTIONS ON BILL”, The Dayton Daily News, March 10, 1995