Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Playwright

Photo courtesy of MacArthur Foundation

Representative Plays:

Appropriate (2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist)
Gloria (2015 Pulitzer Prize Finalist)
An Octoroon (2014)
Neighbors (2010)


Bio:

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins was born in Washington, D.C. on December 29, 1984. He graduated high school as Valedictorian and went on to study Anthropology at Princeton University from which he graduated in 2006. In 2007, he earned a Masters in Performance Studies from NYU. That same year he started work in the New Yorker's fiction department as an editorial assistant. It was during this time he wrote his first play Neighbors. In 2010 he quit his job and moved to Berlin through the Fulbright Fellowship Program. While in Germany, he wrote his next plays An Octoroon and Appropriate along with the start of Gloria. Jacobs-Jenkins returned to the U.S. in 2012 to study at Juilliard's Lilia Acheson Wallace Playwrights program. During this time, he also worked at NYU as an adjunct professor, Baryshnikov Arts Center where he had a residency, Signature Theatre’s Residency program where he also had a playwright residency, as well as various teaching positions at Princeton. Most recently in 2016 he was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Source: NYU Contemporary Playwrights of Color


Resources found in the UC Berkeley Library Database:

(CalNet authentication required) 

Neighbors (Full Text) 


Disclaimer: This playwright profile is part of the BIPOC Playwrights Project, a resource for theater educators and practitioners. Playwrights listed on this website are not necessarily affiliated with UC Berkeley or the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.