Branden Jacobs-Jenkins – författare

A collection of four plays by new American writers curated from the Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater, New York. These plays represent the finest works developed by the Public Theater, addressing contemporary social preoccupations: race, class, heritage, economic hardship, family values and identity.The plays included are: Perish by Stella Fawn Ragsdale: when Porter's father kidnaps her son, she must go back to the woods of East Tennessee to find him, where she is distracted by a mysterious firebird. Textured with poetry and grit, this play follows the plight of women in Appalachia and the disappearance of the working class.The Hour of Feeling by Mona Mansour: in 1967, fuelled by a love of English Romantic poetry, a young Palestinian academic, Adham, and his new wife, Abir, take a trip to London, where he will deliver a career defining lecture. While the situation in his home "country" deteriorates and his marriage threatens to dissolve, Adham confronts his fear of failure and the reality that he may be an outsider no matter where he goes.Bethany by Laura Marks: when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and the going has gotten very tough indeed for Crystal. Her job is in jeopardy, her house has been repossessed and her daughter taken by social services. It's time for Crystal to get going. But in her effort to get her daughter back and put her life on the right track, Crystal is forced to question just how far she's willing to go to survive.Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins: Black face, not on my doorstep, not today. Richard Patterson is not happy. The family of black actors that has moved in next door is rowdy, tacky, shameless, and uncouth. And they are not just invading his neighborhood-they're infiltrating his family, his sanity, and his entirely post-racial lifestyle. This wildly theatrical, explosive play on race is an unconventional comedy which uses minstrelsy both to explore the history of black theater and to confront tensions in 'post-racial' America.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins carefully retraces Hamilton's origins as the musical that brought politicians “from both sides of the aisle,” from Michelle Obama calling it “the best work of art [she’s] ever seen in any medium” to Hillary Clinton’s quoting it at the end of her 2016 speech at the Democratic National Convention. This book squares the emergence of Hamilton as a cultural darling of the American leftist political classes with its portraits of a morally-questionable political figures in history told through the merging of two forms with notoriously radical roots.It parses how and why this Broadway musical reached the height of visibility that it has and what this communicates about the American sociopolitical climate and culture at the beginning of the 21st century - especially after one of the most discordant and alarming sociopolitical showdowns since the 19th century. And ultimately, though Hamilton is a perfectly enjoyable and impressively crafty piece of musical theater, it argues that it in many ways is not, in fact, revolutionary. Does Hamilton engage seriously with politics? Or is politics merely the backdrop for the same-old show business?

'I guess this is just that age. The Age of Shit Showing Up. The Age of Bad Choices Seeking Their Consequences.'Autumn 2022. A group of friends gathering hours before their high-school reunion.Twenty years have passed since graduation: some have had children; some have moved to the other side of the world; some have been to war.But there's another presence in their midst. And as they catch up and reminisce, it only takes a scratch for the scars of those school days to reopen…Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' play The Comeuppance is a bitingly comic, strikingly timely satire which asks if we can ever break free from who we used to be. It was first performed at Signature Theatre, New York City, in 2023, and received its UK premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2024, directed by Eric Ting.'One of this country's most original and illuminating writers' The New York Times on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

'What you gonna do once you free? You just gonna walk up in somebody house and be like,"Hey. I'm a slave. Help me?"'Judge Peyton is dead, and his plantation Terrebonne is in financial ruins. Peyton's handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent, and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful 'octoroon'. But the dastardly M'Closky has other plans – for both Terrebonne and Zoe.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' exhilarating play, An Octoroon, draws on Dion Boucicault's 1859 melodrama The Octoroon to explore issues about race and identity in America today.The play won an OBIE Award when it was first seen in New York in 2014, and had its European premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in 2017. It transferred to the National Theatre, London, in 2018.An Octoroon won Branden Jacobs-Jenkins the Most Promising Playwright Award at the Evening Standard Awards in 2017. He was also named Most Promising Playwright at the Critics' Circle Awards in 2018 for his plays Gloria and An Octoroon.

New York. A city that runs on ambition – and coffee.In the offices of a notorious Manhattan magazine, ruthless editorial assistants vie for their bosses' jobs and a book deal before they're thirty. But bestselling memoir fodder is thin on the ground, and climbing the career ladder is hard when you're trapped between Starbucks runs, jaded gossip and endless encircling cubicle walls...Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Gloria is a razor-sharp comic drama about ambition, office warfare and hierarchies, where the only thing that matters is selling out to the highest bidder.The play was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2016, and had its UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2017.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins was named Most Promising Playwright at the Critics' Circle Awards in 2018 for his plays Gloria and An Octoroon.

‘So I thought, since we can’t do Europe this summer, why don’t the kids and I just do a little Southern History road trip? We’re going to drive back home through Mississippi, Louisiana – all those places – experience some of Daddy’s heritage.’The Lafayette family gather at their late father's home in Arkansas to bury the hatchet and prepare the former plantation for its Estate Sale. Until, that is, they make a discovery which changes everything.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Appropriate is a gripping play about ghosts and the legacies we are left with, and a wickedly subversive appropriation of the great American family drama.Appropriate premiered Off-Broadway in 2014, and won the Obie Award for Best New American Play. It had its UK premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in August 2019, directed by Ola Ince and featuring Monica Dolan.This edition also features his short play I Promise Never Again to Write Plays About Asians...