Romulus Linney

Romulus Linney, the prolific American playwright, was born on September 21, 1930 in Philadelphia. He was the namesake of his great-grandfather, the Republican Congressman, Romulus Zachariah Linney, a Confederate Army veteran who represented North Carolina's 8th District from 1895-1901. Raised in North Carolina and Tennessee, Linney graduated from Oberlin College and then attended the Yale School of Drama, here he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. Linney wrote 85 plays, including "Holy Ghosts", "Sand Mountain, "The Sorrows of Frederick", and "2: Goering at Nuremberg". His play "The 34th Star" was produced for public television in 1974. His plays were staged Off- and Off-Off-Broadway and by regional theaters. His one Broadway production, "The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks", was a flop, closing after only five performances in 1972. (The play was revived Off-Broadway in 1992, playing for a little over two weeks.) While he was never a success in commercial terms, he was highly res