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Penny Kinney currently serves as board president of Austin Area Arts. How lucky they, and we, are to have her in this role. Her bio on their website reads:

“Penny Kinney has been active in Southeast Minnesota theaters — on stage and behind the scenes — for nearly 50 years. Her roots in the theatre were planted at Austin State Jr. College (now Riverland Community College) and in Summerset Theatre back in 1969. She has served in every capacity in theatre from chorus member to producer. Penny was born and raised in Rose Creek, Minnesota. She worked for Hormel Foods for 35 years. If you know and love a song by a 1950s/60s girl group, I bet Penny could sing along with you!”

There is no doubt Penny found her passion in theater. She trained as a teacher at Mankato State University and tried teaching, but it was in directing school plays where she found joy. A big challenge came in 1991. Her husband, Steve, was working in dinner theater in Rochester when a production company backed out of doing a Christmas show. Steve took the risk and said he and Penny could put together a show. With only three weeks until performances were to begin, they enlisted the help of Jerry Girton, friend and Riverland Theatre Director.

Somehow, they pulled it off, with Penny writing the script, she and Jerry co-producing, Steve directing, and the three of them drawing on actors from the Austin theater scene. That was the first of a run of 23 years of “Forever Christmas” shows that Penny wrote which were performed in partnership with three different hotels in Rochester. She explains the shows were a cross between Saturday Night Live and Lawrence Welk, sketch comedy and lots of old favorite Christmas music of all kinds.

Over those 23 years, around 80 actors and musicians from the Austin and Rochester areas performed in a “Forever Christmas” production.”

Singing telegrams were another way Penny used her comedic and acting talents. When hired to do a telegram presentation, she would do research so each presentation was personal and unique.

Some of you will have seen Penny’s work with the “St. Andrew’s Sisters,” working with Connie Nelson and Alice Holst. Using nuns’ costumes from a local production of “Nunsense,” Penny first put together a comedy and singing skit for a women’s retreat. That led to lots of “gigs” for this group at class reunions and other events, performing six or seven times a year. 

Penny researches each situation and writes the script for the specific audience. This act, which harmonizes like an old fashioned “girls group,” had their greatest thrill in opening for “The Temptations” at SPAMs 75th anniversary celebration in 2012.

Another challenge Penny set for herself came out of seeing an eight-minute production of “Lord of the Rings.” That was the inspiration for “The Pallet Players” who perform each year at the Artworks Festival. Steve Kinney put together a portable pallet which is the stage for these short plays that pop up around the festival. Penny writes the scripts based on epic tales and all the action happens very quickly. Such very clever script writing!

Randy Forster has written a monologue play based on letters telling the life of early Austin resident, Gertrude Skinner. He asked Penny to perform this production. She was completely believable as Gertude, telling the audience about her amazing life and travels.

Penny says she sees the theater as a mirror of life. She likes best performing in productions that have no “fourth wall.” In “theater speak,” that means when the actors are speaking directly to the audience, rather than to each other on the stage. In other words, the audience is an intimate part of the show. In her Pallet Players productions, she likes the concept that the play comes to the audience instead of the other way around.

Penny says, “When it comes to the theatre — watching it or doing it — I’m open to most anything. I admire the creativity of those who think outside-the-box, who try bold, new ways of presentation, who collaborate with other organizations in unexpected ways, etc. “It can’t be done” is often motivation to dig in my heels.

What skill Penny has! She has more ideas for future endeavors, so be watching for what this humble, and highly creative woman comes up with next.