William Inge Center For The Arts

Mission:
To nurture, celebrate and promote the achievements of playwrights, playwriting and the American Theatre, in order to educate, entertain and culturally enrich the communities of Kansas, the region and beyond.

About Us:

The William Inge Center for the Arts was founded in 1982 on the campus of Independence Community College in Independence, Kansas, in celebration and memory of Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award-winning playwright and native son, William Inge.  Its initial event was a modest one-day commemoration of William Inge’s life.  Now, the Inge Center’s showpiece event is the four-day internationally recognized William Inge Theatre Festival that has honored some of the world’s most prestigious playwrights.  Arthur Miller, Wendy Wasserstein, August Wilson, Neil Simon and Stephen Sondheim are some of those who have traveled to Independence to accept the Festival’s Distinguished Achievement in American Theatre Award.  Other honors bestowed at the Festival include the Otis Guernsey New Voices in Playwriting award, which recognizes a peer-nominated emerging playwright, the Kansas Citizen for the Arts Award, for superlative artistic achievements by a Kansas native, the Margaret Goheen Award, for outstanding contributions to theater in Independence and surrounding area (named after the founder of the Festival), and the Jerome Lawrence Award for contributions to the Inge Festival and the national theatre by a non-playwright. 

The William Inge Center for the Arts was founded as the William Inge Festival, later changing its name to the William Inge Theatre Festival.  Since 2002, the Inge Center has significantly expanded its services, prompting a formal name change to the William Inge Center for the Arts in 2004.  This was to avoid confusion with the annual William Inge Theatre Festival event.