Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian’s 2024 play Kenrex, about the decades-long bullying of a small farming community and its violent end, is being presented at off-Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theatre. As directed by Stambollouian, Holden portrays over 25 different characters in a one-man tour de force that won him an Olivier Award for Best Actor earlier this year.
The story is based on the true life tale of Kenneth Rex McElroy. In Skidmore, Missouri, McElroy had reigned through a campaign of livestock rustling, arson, robbery, and assault. He avoided incarceration through witness intimidation and legal loopholes. The play is framed within the interrogation by an FBI agent of the county prosecutor over the circumstances surrounding McElroy’s death.
The beginning of the end for McElroy was an armed assault on 70 year old Ernest “Bo” Bowenkamp, the town’s grocer. McElroy, out on bail pending his trial, upped his usual techniques of intimidation and defamation against Bowenkamp and anyone who supported him.
Holden’s deft portrayal of the many townspeople involved in the story, combined with Stambollouian’s dynamic directing, never allows the audience to lose their way through the sordid story of Kenrex. That curious journey through very dramatic, human, imperfect, unsettling, but fascinating events is a unique experience.
Holden is joined on stage by musician John Patrick Elliott, who composed the score for the show and performs several of his original songs. Recordings of voice actors Kelly Burke, as FBI investigator Annette Parker, and James Sobol Kelly round out the cast.
Kenrex is presented at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street in New York City, through June 27, 2026. For more information, or to purchase tickets, go to kenrextheplay.com/.
