Sidney Kingsley

Kingsley, Sidney [né Kirschner] (1906–95), playwright and director. He was born in Philadelphia and studied at Cornell where he wrote one‐act plays for the University's drama club. His first play to reach Broadway was Men in White (1933), the Pulitzer Prize–winning drama about the medical profession that the Group Theatre presented with success. Kingsley was a slow, careful writer, so it took two years to write Dead End (1935), which was also a hit. He also directed the play, as he did all his subsequent offerings. After disappointing runs for Ten Million Ghosts (1936), The World We Make (1939), and The Patriots (1943), he scored a success with the police drama Detective Story (1949), followed by Darkness at Noon (1951), Lunatics and Lovers (1954), and Night Life (1962). Kingsley's best works were hard‐hitting dramas with a moral and social point of view.

• Born: October 18, 1906
• Birthplace: New York
• Died: October 13, 1995

Sidney Kingsley won the Pulitzer Prize for his play, Men in White in 1934. His historical drama, The Patriots won 1943's New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

Educated at Cornell, he wrote one-act plays for the University's drama club. Kingsley joined the the Group Theatre as an actor when it was was formed in New York by Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg. Others involved in the group included Elia Kazan, Stella Adler, John Garfield, Paul Green, Howard Da Silva, Franchot Tone, John Randolph, Joseph Bromberg, Michael Gordon, Clifford Odets and Lee J. Cobb. Holding left-wing political views, their first Kinsley play, Men in White, was set in a hospital and dealt with moral issues such as abortion; the play was the Group's first box-office success. After the Second World War, most of the members of the Group Theatre were investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Some, like Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets and Lee J. Cobb, testified and named other members of left-wing groups. Those that refused (eg, Stella Adler, John Garfield, Howard Da Silva, John Randolph, and Joseph Bromberg) were blacklisted. Kingsley, who had previously written film scripts for Hollywood, including Dead End, Homecoming and Detective Story, was among those blacklisted and concentrated on writing for the theatre. This included an adaptation of Arthur Koestler's novel, Darkness at Noon (1951), Lunatics and Lovers (1954) and Night Life (1962).

Most Famous Works

• Men in White (1933)
• Dead End (1935)
• The Patriots (1943)
• Detective Story (1949)
• Darkness at Noon (1951)

(1906-1995)

1933	Men in White. Kingsley's first Broadway production concerns the ethical conflict of a young intern forced to choose between a comfortable personal life and service to his profession. It wins the Pulitzer Prize and represents the first major success for the Group Theatre, establishing its reputation for offering realistic, socially relevant dramas. Kingsley was born in Philadelphia and began writing plays while a student at Cornell.
1935	Dead End. This gritty melodrama about New York City slum and gang life shocks audiences with its street language. It would be adapted by Lillian Hellman into a successful film in 1937, which launched the Dead End Kids in subsequent films.
1936	Ten Million Ghosts. Kingsley's antiwar drama is a strident attack on munitions manufacturers.
1939	The World We Make. Based on Millen Brand's novel The Outward Room (1937), the play dramatizes a mentally disturbed woman who tries to live a normal life.
1943	The Patriots. The playwright's most controversial play dramatizes the struggle between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton to arrive at the best definition of good government during the formative years of the American republic. Though critics and audiences argue over the play's historical accuracy and dramatic merit, it earns the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
1949	Detective Story. Kingsley's gritty melodrama set in a New York police precinct house concerns a disillusioned and ethically compromised detective. It would be adapted as a movie, starring Kirk Douglas, in 1951.
1951	Darkness at Noon. The playwright's last significant work is an adaptation of Arthur Koestler's 1941 novel about Communist repression during the Stalin era. It wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play.