David Adjmi – författare

In a world where everyone is inventing a self, curating a feed and performing a fantasy of life, what does it mean to be a person? In his grandly entertaining debut memoir, playwright David Adjmi explores how human beings create themselves, and how artists make their lives into art. 

Brooklyn, 1970s. Born into the ruins of a Syrian Jewish family that once had it all, David is painfully displaced. Trapped in an insular religious community that excludes him and a family coming apart at the seams, he is plunged into suicidal depression. Through adolescence, David tries to suppress his homosexual feelings and fit in, but when pushed to the breaking point, he makes the bold decision to cut off his family, erase his past, and leave everything he knows behind. There''s only one problem: who should he be? Bouncing between identities he steals from the pages of fashion magazines, tomes of philosophy, sitcoms and foreign films, and practically everyone he meets—from Rastafarians to French preppies—David begins to piece together an entirely new adult self. But is this the foundation for a life, or just a kind of quicksand?

Moving from the glamour and dysfunction of 1970s Brooklyn, to the sybaritic materialism of Reagan’s 1980s to post-9/11 New York, Lot Six offers a quintessentially American tale of an outsider striving to reshape himself in the funhouse mirror of American culture. Adjmi’s memoir is a genre bending Künstlerroman in the spirit of Charles Dickens and Alison Bechdel, a portrait of the artist in the throes of a life and death crisis of identity. Raw and lyrical, and written in gleaming prose that veers effortlessly between hilarity and heartbreak, Lot Six charts Adjmi’s search for belonging, identity, and what it takes to be an artist in America.

“Nearly everything about David Adjmi’s Stunning has an original ring to it, from the setting . . . to the brassy bleat of the dialogue." –Time Out New York

This volume of distinctive work includes Stunning, set in an insular Syrian Jewish community, where a teenage bride’s world is disrupted by her intellectual African American housekeeper; Evildoers, about the collapse of two privileged couples; and Elective Affinities, a post-9/11 monologue.

David Adjmi’s work has been produced at Lincoln Center Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and the Royal Court in London. He has received numerous commissions and is the recipient of a 2009 Kesselring Fellowship and a Bush Artist Fellowship.

A dual volume from "virtuosic" playwright David Adjmi (New York Times).

 About Marie Antoinette:

“David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette is audacious and stun­ning. The work skewers the oblivious royals and one-percenters, understands their bred-to-be-bad behavior, and strips away the illusion of not only the monarchy but of democracy, too—a hat trick that Adjmi performs with the delicate balance of comedy, tragedy, and wild imaginings.” —Variety

The eyes of the court are on Marie Antoinette. Times change, and even the most fashionable queens go out of style. Drawing comparison of the gluttonous excess of Marie’s era to the decadent material­ism of the present day, Marie Antoinette holds up a mirror to our contemporary society, which just might be entertaining itself to death.

About 3C:

“Bitterly funny and inventive, 3C appropriates the sit­com structure of iconic Three’s Company and pumps it full of sexual panic and existential horror. Adjmi’s quick-cutting script is intensely funny and unnerving in equal measure.” —Time Out New York

The war in Vietnam is over and Brad, an ex-serviceman, lands in L.A. to start a new life. When he winds up trashed in Connie and Linda’s kitchen after a wild night of partying, the three strike a deal for an arrangement that has hilarious and devastating consequences for everyone. Inspired by 1970s sitcoms and 1950s existentialist comedy, 3C is a terrifying yet amusing look at a culture that likes to amuse itself—even as it teeters on the brink of ruin.

Winner of five 2024 Tony Awards, including Best Play

An epic play with music that examines the human costs of the quest for artistic greatness.

The place: Sausalito. The time: the mid-1970s. The carpet: brown shag. Stereophonic brings us inside the cloistered world of a recording studio as a rock band on the brink of superstardom attempts to create their sophomore album. The ensuing pressures open up cracks in the band’s once-easy camaraderie, and spats over issues like tempo and song length begin to reveal deeper problems in the band’s foundation. Running on a diet of booze, sleep deprivation, and a giant bag of cocaine, interpersonal relationships are pushed to the breaking point as a process that was meant to last a few weeks becomes a neverending slog. With original songs by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, David Adjmi’s play is an electrifying portrait of a band wracked with division and disillusionment that nevertheless might be on the verge of creating a masterpiece.