Theatre Communications Group Publishes New Plays from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

(macfound.org)

New from TCG Books:

Appropriate/An Octoroon: Plays by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

NEW YORK, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the publication of Appropriate/An Octoroon: Plays by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Appropriate received a co-world premiere in 2013 at the 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in Louisville, KY and Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, IL. An Octoroon received its world premiere at Soho Rep. in New York in the spring of 2014.

“The deftly crafted blend of shocking exaggeration and believability, politeness and fury…makes Appropriate land with the kind of thump you rarely encounter in the theater.”
—Chicago Tribune

A double-volume containing two astonishing breakout plays from one of the theatre’s most exciting and provocative young writers. In Appropriate, strained familial dynamics collide with a tense undercurrent of socio-political realities when the Lafayettes gather at a former plantation home to sift through the belongings of their deceased patriarch. An Octoroon is an audacious investigation of theatre and identity, wherein an old play gives way to a startlingly original piece. The volume also includes the short play I Promise Never Again to Write Plays About Asians…

“So energetic, funny, and entertainingly demented, you can’t look away.”
—New York on An Octoroon

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s plays include Everybody (Signature Theatre, Pulitzer Prize finalist), War (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre, Pulitzer Prize finalist), Appropriate (Signature Theatre, Obie Award), An Octoroon (Soho Rep., Obie Award) and Neighbors (The Public Theater). He is a Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre and under commission from LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater, the Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Initiative Grant, and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. His recent honors include the Charles Wintour Award for Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard, a London Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award, the Steinberg Playwright Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. He sits on the board of Soho Rep., and, with Annie Baker, is the Associate Co-Director of the Hunter College MFA Program in Playwriting, where he is also a Master-Artist-in-Residence.

Theatre Communications Group would like to offer special thanks to the Vilcek Foundation for its generous support of the publication of Appropriate/An Octoroon: Plays by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. To learn more about TCG’s Book Sponsorship Program, contact Kevin Bitterman. vilcek.org

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) exists to strengthen, nurture, and promote professional theatre in the U.S. and globally. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 700 Member Theatres and affiliate organizations and nearly 10,000 Individual Members. Through its Core Values of Activism, Artistry, Diversity, and Global Citizenship, TCG advances a better world for theatre and a better world because of theatre. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the annual TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 17 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its Member Theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field, and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org.