Robert Patrick (playwright)
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Robert Patrick (b. September 27, 1937) is a gay playwright, poet, lyricist, and short story writer and novelist. He was born Robert Patrick O'Connor in Kilgore, Texas.
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[edit] Career
Robert Patrick is the author of over 60 published plays.
His first play, The Haunted Host (see forty years of production photos at [1] was produced in 1964 and premiered at the Caffe Cino. Mr. Patrick refused the offer of Neil Flanagan, the Cino's star performer, to play the title role (because Flanagan had played Lanford Wilson's gay character, Lady Bright) and by default wound up appearing in the play himself with fellow playwright William M. Hoffman.
During the 1960s, Mr. Patrick was a pioneer in the Off-Off-Broadway movement and gay theatre, with over 300 productions of his plays being held during this decade in Manhattan alone. He won the "Show Business"Award in 1969 for Joyce Dynel, Salvation Army, and Fog. That same year his play, Camera Obscura was produced on PBS, starring Marge Champion. A 1974 production of Haunted Host marked the first time Harvey Fierstein appeared onstage as a male. Years later, Fierstein included a recording of Patrick's monologue, Pouf Positive on his CD, "This Is Not Going to Be Pretty. Positive was also filmed by Dov Hechtman in 1989.
The year 1974 also saw international success for the play Kennedy's Children, earning actress Shirley Knight a Tony award, and also the first season of gay theatre in the UK, to which Mr. Patrick contributed three plays. Mister Patrick toured high schools and high school theatre conventions nationwide for ten years on behalf of the International Thespians Society. My Cup Ranneth Over (1976) was commissioned by Marlo Thomas, for herself and Lily Tomlin, but their projected special never happened. The play went on to become Mister Patrick's most produced.
T-Shirts, first produced in 1979 and starring Jack Wrangler, was later chosen as the opening piece for William M. Hoffman's Gay Plays: A First Anthology. Blue Is For Boys was the first play about gay teenagers, and weekends in honor of the play were declared by Manhattan borough presidents in 1983 and 1986. The Trial of Socrates was the first gay play presented by the City of New York. Hello Bob is an account of Mr. Patrick's experiences with the production of Kennedy's Children. It was the last play he directed before leaving New York.
Other works by Robert Patrick include Untold Decades (1988), a history of gay male life in the U.S. told in a humorous vein, and Temple Slave, a"totally romanticized" novel about the early days of Off-Off Broadway and gay theatre. He has also ghostwritten several screen- and television plays, contributed poems and reviews to Playbill , FirstHand, and Adult Video News, and had his short stories included in numerous anthologies. He has also appeared in the documentary Resident Alien with Quentin Crisp and also in the videos O is for Orgy: The Sequel, and O Boys: Parties, Porn, and Politics, both produced by the O Boys Network.
He has most recently written his memoirs, Film Moi, and the plays Hollywood at Sunset, available online at [2] and "Michelangelo's Models," available online at [3]. Robert Patrick currently resides and works in Los Angeles, where he has lived since 1993. He reviews adult gay male videos for several publications, and maintains galleries about the Caffe Cino starting at [4].
Patrick should not be confused with popular American actor Robert Patrick of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and The X-Files.
[edit] Selected works
[edit] Plays
- The Haunted Host
- Joyce Dynel
- Salvation Army
- Fog
- Camera Obscura
- Pouf Positive
- Kennedy's Children
- One Man, One Woman
- Play-By-Play
- The Golden Circle
- Tools Not Rules
- My Cup Ranneth Over
- T-Shirts
- Mutual Benefit Life
- Mercy Drop
- Blue Is For Boys
- Untold Decades
- Michelangelo's Models
- Bread Alone
- The Trial of Socrates
- Judas
- The Last Stroke
- Hello, Bob
- Evan on Earth
- All at Sea (book and score)
- Hollywood at Sunset
[edit] Collections and Anthologies
- Robert Patrick's Cheap Theatricks
- Mercy Drop and Other Plays
- Gay Plays: A First Anthology (edited by William M. Hoffman, includes play, T-Shirts)
- Contra/Dictions
- The Mammoth Book of Gay Short Stories
- Flesh & the Word 2 & 3
[edit] Poetry
- "Benedicktion," published in RFD magazine #104
[edit] Screen- and Television Plays
Plus numerous ghost-written works
[edit] Film and video roles
- Resident Alien
- O Is for Orgy: The Sequel
- O Boys: Parties, Porn, and Politics
[edit] Awards
- Show Business Magazine Best Play Award, 1969
- Glasgow Citizens Theatre Best World Playwrighting Award, 1973
- International Thespian Society Founders Award For Services To Theatre And To Youth, 1980 (first openly gay recipient)
- Blue is for Boys Weekends in Borough of Manhattan, 1983 and 1986
- Robert Chesley Foundation Award For Lifetime Achievement In Gay Playwrighting, 1996
[edit] External links
- Robert Patrick's website
- Robert Patrick at the Internet Movie Database
- [5] Caffe Cino
- [6] 50 Picture Pages of or relating to the Caffe Cino
The original author of this page thanks Mr. Robert Patrick for his kind assistance with this article.
