Romulus Linney was an American playwright and professor. He wrote three novels, four opera librettos, twenty short stories, and eighty-five plays—which have been staged throughout the United States and in Europe and Asia.

His theatre works include his Broadway writing debut The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks (ANTA Playhouse) and Off-Broadway, A Lesson Before Dying (Peter Norton Space), 2: Goering at Nuremberg (Primary Stages), Ambrosio, A Woman Without a Name, Heathen Valley, and The Sorrows of Frederick (Signature Theatre), April Snow (N.Y.C. Center Stage), and Childe Byron (Circle Theatre).

Linney received two OBIE Awards, two National Critics Awards, three Drama-Logue Awards, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment of the Arts.

He was the founding playwright of Signature Theatre Company, which named a theatre in his honor in the new Signature Center.