Marc Connelly
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Marcus Cook Connelly (December 13, 1890 - December 21, 1980) was a member of the Algonquin Round Table.
He was writing plays at the age of five in his hometown of Mckeesport, Pa. He was a journalist for the Pittsburgh Sun in Pittsburgh until he moved to New York City. Meeting his friends at the Algonquin Round Table, he jumped at the chance to write plays with them.
Connelly composed several comedies with playwright George S. Kaufman:
- 1921 Dulcy
- 1921-22 Little Old Millersville
- 1922 Merton of the Movies
- 1925 Beggar on Horseback
He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Green Pastures in 1931. The play, a re-telling of the Old Testament, was a landmark in American drama; boasting the first all-black Broadway cast. He contributed verse and articles to Life, Everybody's, and other magazines.[1]
Connelly was one of the wittiest members of the Algonquin Round Table. He said, "I always knew children were anti-social. But the children of the West Side -- they're savage."
In 1968, Connelly penned his autobiography, "Voices Offstage".
A film about the Round Table members, The Ten-Year Lunch (1987), won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; Connelly was interviewed for it. A 1994 movie about the group was entitled Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. There is also a musical about it called "The Talk of the Town" that is performed in the Algonquin's Oak Room cabaret; Connelly is a character in the show.
