American - Playwright | December 29, 1984 -
All of my work is sort of fed by a question, a need to understand the world and why the world is what it is.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
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One of the most incredible and important things about the theater is that we're creating a safe space for all feelings, but especially, ugly feelings.
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I tried writing a novel, but plays were the thing that kept feeding me, asking me to come back, sit down and be with them.
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How do we refresh our language? Why do we still use, like, a 150-year-old classification system to talk about people? It's so weird! We still call people black and white?
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I spent summers with my mother's parents in Arkansas, where religion felt very present. My grandmother was Baptist, and my grandfather was Methodist. Double Southern whammy.
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I have this thing called hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies. It's incredibly rare.
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I identify as queer. I just don't know what any of these labels mean.
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I was 23 when I wrote 'Neighbors,' and I definitely look back at it now and cringe a little bit. I was trying to understand what drama was.
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I seem to belong to a boom moment of playwrights, and I'm always curious about how we all got here and what comes next.
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The first theater subscription I ever bought was the August Wilson season at Signature. I remember thinking a whole season to one playwright was a great way for a master to do a victory lap.
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Theater is an old thing. It's thousands of years old. TV isn't. Film isn't. We're doing a really old thing.
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You get better at the thing you do by having to explain it to someone else. That, I think, totally makes my work stronger.
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