Navigation

• Main Page

• Random Page
• Create a new Page
• All Pages
• Categories
• File Management
• Login/Logout

Robert Patrick

The Knitting Circle: Theatre

Biography,plays,other work,web site.

US dramatist and writer.

Full name: Robert Patrick O'Connor.

His parents were migrant workers, but the Second World War provided his father with a salary and the family was able to settle for a while in the town of Grand Prairie in Texas. Robert Patrick suffered beatings for being sissy and for spending his time reading.

He drifted on his own to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Maine. In September 1961 he was in Greenwich Village, New York City, and followed a pretty boy into the Caffe Cino. This was a coffeehouse owned by the openly gay Joe Cino and was a popular with gay artists. During the day Robert Patrick worked as a typist in the city morgue but in the evenings he did whatever work was required at Caffe Cino's, including being the doorman, stage hand, publicist, actor, co-manager, and playwright. Around this time he was known to his friends as Una O'Connor. In November 1964 Robert Patrick's first playThe Haunted Hostwas staged at the coffeehouse. The parts were played by Robert Patrick and William M. Hoffman because real actors willing to play gays could not be found. Robert Patrick continued to work at Caffe Cino's until it closed in 1968, a year after Joe Cino killed himself. The semi-autobiographical novelTemple Slave, (1994), is based on life at Caffe Cino.

He then became playwright in residence at Norman Hartman's Old Reliable Tavern Theatre in the East Village and, occasionally, at La Mama, the centre of downtown theatrical experimentation.

Robert Patrick had over 300 productions in Manhattan's Off-Off Broadway theatres in the 1960s.

HisKennedy's Children, (1973), ran on Broadway and in London's West End. In 1978 this became the first contemporary gay play to be televised by the BBC.

In during March to May 1975 three of his plays were performed forHomosexual Acts, the season of gay theatre withGay Sweatshopin London, which was the first gay theatre staged in Britain.

He was the only openly gay person to be awarded the International Thespian Society's Founders Award for "e;services to theatre and to youth"e;.

Harvey Fierstein had his first male role inThe Haunted Hostin Boston, 1976.

From 1979 to 1982 Robert Patrick wroteState of the Art, the only column about Off-Off-Broadway, in the paperOther Stages.

Robert Patrick was also the only playwright to have two weekends designated in his honour by Manhattan Borough Presidents. This was for his play about gay teenagers,Blue Is For Boysin 1983 and 1986.

In 1988 hisThe Trial of Socrateswas the first gay play presented by the City of New York. He was awarded The Pick of the Fringe prize forThe Last Strokeat the Edinburgh Festival.

The Denver Center Theatre Company commissioned him to write the book and score for the full-length opera,All At Sea.

He appeared withQuentin Crispin the filmResident Alien, in 1990. Other films that he has appeared in areO Is For Orgy: The SequelandThe O-Boys: Porn, Parties, and Politics.

As AIDS became central to people's lives Robert Patrick began to feel constrained by having to deal continuously with the issues. In 1991 he moved to Los Angeles to work in television. He has written forGhost Story,High Tide, andRobin's Hoods. He has also ghosted other television and screen plays.

In 1997 he received the Robert Chesley Lifetime Award for Gay Playwrighting.

His short stories have been published in five anthologies.

• The Haunted Host, produced 1964.
  

• Mirage, produced 1965.
  

• Sketches, produced 1966.
  

• The Sleeping Bag, produced 1966.
  

• Halloween Hermit, produced 1966.
  

• Indecent Exposure, produced 1966.
  

• Cheesecake, produced 1966.
  

• Lights, Camera, Action, includesLights, Camera Obscura, Action, produced 1966; inMy Dear It Doesn't Mean a Thing, produced 1976.
  

• Warhol Machine, produced 1967.
  

• Still-Love, produced 1968.
  

• Cornered, produced 1968.
  

• Un Bel Di, produced 1968.
  

• Help, 1 Am, produced 1968.
  

• See Other Side, produced 1968.
  

• Absolute Power over Movie Stars, produced 1968.
  

• Preggin and Liss, produced 1968.
  

• The Overseers, produced 1968.
  

• Angels in Agony, produced 1968.
  

• Salvation Army, produced 1968.
  

• Joyce Dynel: An American Zarzuela, asDynel, produced 1968; revised version, asJoyce Dynel, produced 1969.
  

• Fog, produced 1969.
  

• The Young of Aquarius, produced 1969.
  

• I Came to New York to Write, produced 1969.
  

• Oooooooops!, produced 1969.
  

• Lily of the Valley of the Dolls, produced 1969.
  

• One Person: A Monologue, produced 1969.
  

• Silver Skies, produced 1969.
  

• Tarquin Truthbeauty, produced 1969.
  

• Presenting Arnold Bliss, produced 1969; inThe Arnold Bliss Show, produced 1972.
  

• The Actor and the Invader, inKinetic Karma, produced 1969; inThe Arnold Bliss Show, 1972.
  

• Hymen and Carbuncle, produced 1970.
  

• A Bad Place to Get Your Head, produced 1970.
  

• Bead-Tangle, includesLa Répétition), produced 1970.
  

• Sketches and Songs, produced 1970.
  

• I Am Trying to Tell You Something, produced 1970.
  

• Angel, Honey, Baby, Darling, Dear, produced 1970.
  

• The Golden Animal, produced 1970.
  

• Picture Wire, produced 1970.
  

• The Richest Girl in the World Finds Happiness, produced 1970.
  

• A Christmas Carol, produced 1971.
  

• Shelter, produced 1971.
  

• The Golden Circle, produced 1972, 1977(?).
  

• Ludwig and Wagner, produced 1972.
  

• Youth Rebellion, produced 1972.
  

• Songs, produced 1972.
  

• Play-by-Play, produced 1972; revised version produced 1975, 1975.
  

• Robert Patrick's Cheap Theatricks, plays, monologues & sketches, 1972, with a preface by Lanford Wilson, published in New York by Winter House, 358 pages.
  

• Something Else, produced 1973.
  

• Cleaning House, produced 1973.
  

• The Track of the Narwhal, produced 1973.
  

• Judas, produced 1973.
  

• Mercy Drop; or, Marvin Loves Johnny, produced 1973.
  

• The Twisted Root, produced 1973.
  

• Simultaneous Transmissions, produced 1973.
  

• Hippy as a Lark, produced 1973.
  

• Imp-Prisonment, produced 1973.
  

• Kennedy's Children, produced 1973, 1975.
  
  Kennedy's Children, 1976, published in New York by Random House, 66 pages.
  

• Love Lace, produced 1974.
  

• How I Came to Be Here Tonight, produced 1974.
  

• Orpheus and Amerika, music by Rob Felstein, produced 1974.
  

• Fred and Harold, and One Person, produced 1975.
  

• Report to the Mayor, produced 1977.
  

• Dr. Paroo, produced 1981.
  

• My Cup Ranneth Over, produced 1978, 1979.
  

• Mutual Benefit Life, produced 1978, 1979.
  

• T-Shirts, produced 1978.
  

• One Man, One Woman, produced 1979, 1978.
  

• Bank Street Breakfast, produced 1979.
  

• Communication Gap, produced 1979; asAll in Your Mind, produced 1981.
  

• The Family Bar, produced 1979.
  

• Mercy Drop and other plays, 1979, published in New York by Calamus Books, 132 pages.
  

• Diaghilev and Nijinsky, produced 1981.
  

• Sane Scientist, produced 1981.
  

• Michelangelo's Models, produced 1981, 1983.
  

• 24 Inches, music by David Tice, lyrics by Patrick, produced 1982.
  

• The Spinning Tree, produced 1982.
  

• They Really Love Roba, produced 1982.
  

• Sit-Com, produced 1982.
  

• Willpower, May 1982.
  

• Blue Is for Boys, produced 1983.
  

• Nice Girl, produced 1983.
  

• Beaux-Arts Ball, produced 1983.
  

• The Comeback, produced 1983.
  

• The Holy Hooker, produced 1983.
  

• 50's 60's 70's 80's, produced 1984.
  

• Big Sweet, music by LeRoy Dysart, produced 1984.
  

• That Lovable Laughable Auntie MatterinDisgustin' Space Lizards, produced 1985.
  

• Bread Alone, produced 1985.
  

• No Trojan Women, music by Catherine Stornetta, produced 1985.
  

• Left Out, produced 1985.
  

• The Hostages, produced 1985.
  

• The Trial of Socrates, produced 1986.
  

• Bill Batchelor Road, produced 1986.
  

• On Stage, produced 1986.
  

• Why Are They Like That?, produced 1986.
  

• Desert Waste, produced 1986.
  

• La Balance, produced 1986.
  

• Pouf Positive, produced 1986.
  

• Lust, produced 1986.
  

• Drowned Out, produced 1986.
  

• The Last Stroke, produced 1987.
  

• Explanation of a Xmas Wedding, produced 1987.
  

• Let Me Not Mar That Perfect Dream, produced 1988.
  

• Untold Decades, produced 1988, 1988.
  
  Untold Decades: seven comedies of gay romance, 1988, with prefaces by Harvey Fierstein and William M. Hoffman, published in New York by St. Martins, 212 pages.
  

• The Trojan Women, produced 1988.
  

• Hello, Bob, produced 1990.
  

• Evan on Earth, produced 1991.
  

• United States, produced 1991.
  

• Interruptions, produced 1992.
  

• The Haunted Host, 1969, a screenplay.
  

• The Credit Game, 1972, a screenplay.
  

• Resident Alien, 1990, film role as himself.
  

• High Tide, 1994, writing for television series.
  

• Temple Slave, 1994, a novel published by Masquerade Books, 1994, 464 pages.
  

• The war over Jane Fonda, 1997, inThe Mammoth Book of Gay Short Stories.
  

Biography,plays,other work,web site.

Back to the Resource Centre main page

Click here to return to the Knitting Circle home page.

The Knitting Circle

First uploaded 6th. July, 2003.

Last altered 7th. July, 2003