Kenyon attended Crawfordsville High School from 1909–1910, where he was active in drama and was the assistant business manager of the yearbook, The Athenian.

At DeWitt Clinton he studied English, Latin, German, physical training, history, and elocution, and belonged to the chorus in a school play.

In addition to theater, Kenyon was on the staff of the school newspaper, The Bachelor, as well as various committees, including the one in 1914 that decided on white v-neck jerseys with purple edging as the sophomore class insignia.

[4] He was on the board of the school magazine, a member of Beta Theta Pi, and was appointed director of the glee club in 1917; he was a second tenor and was in the ukulele quintet.

Kenyon and his brother, Laurence, enlisted in the Army in April, 1917, and were sent to Officers' Reserve Training camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Lawrence, Indiana.

[6] Kenyon was next appointed as an instructor in the English department at Columbia University, and was assistant to Hatcher Hughes in teaching playwriting.

Kenyon Nicholson's first Broadway success was The Barker, which was produced by Charles L. Wagner and Edgar Selwyn at the Biltmore Theater in January, 1927.

[9] The idea for this play came to Kenyon and his writing partner, Charles Robinson while they were drinking in a sailor's hangout in San Pedro.

Kenyon collaborated on many of his plays; some of his writing partners include S. N. Behrman, Charles Knox Robinson, and John Golden.

Lucile Nikolas was a member of the Stuart Walker Company in Indianapolis in 1921 when Kenyon Nicholson, press agent, met her.

During the 1930s, Kenyon and Lucile moved to a farm in the Rosemont/Stockton, New Jersey area where a colony of actors and playwrights (Moss Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II were two) had begun to grow.