author
Kenneth Sawyer Goodman
1883–1918
A Chicago playwright drawn to the Little Theatre movement, he wrote vivid one-act plays and helped shape an energetic moment in early 20th-century American drama. His name lives on through Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, created as a memorial after his death in 1918.
1 Audiobook
The Game of Chess: A Play in One Act
by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman
About the author
Born in Chicago in 1883, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman became known as a playwright, poet, and short-story writer at a time when smaller, more experimental stages were opening space for new American voices. Sources on his life consistently connect him with Chicago’s Little Theatre scene, and archival records show a substantial body of plays, correspondence, diaries, and other personal papers.
Goodman was the son of William O. Goodman, a prominent Chicago lumber businessman, but he moved toward the arts rather than the family trade. Accounts of his life note that he graduated from Princeton in 1906, was active in Chicago theater circles, and wrote numerous one-act plays, including work connected with Ben Hecht.
He died in 1918 at age 35 while serving as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve during the influenza pandemic. A few years later, his parents established the Goodman Theatre in his memory, giving his legacy a lasting place in American theater history.