Overview

""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 ""So energetic, funny, and entertainingly demented, you can't look away.""-New York on An Octoroon harkens the likes of Tracy Letts or Sam Shepard, but with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's unique flair for melodrama and touch of the absurd. Themes of history and racial politics permeate much of this young playwright's astounding work. This collection also includes the acclaimed play An Octoroon, a bombastic theatrical investigation of theater and identity, wherin an old play gives way to a startlingly contemporary piece. Also includes the short play I Promise Never Ever Again to Write Plays About Asians... Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's plays include An Octoroon, Neighbors, Appropriate, Gloria, and War. He is a playwright-in-residence at Signature Theatre. Recent honors include a 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play (An Octoroon and Appropriate).

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Reviews

A work that is infinitely playful and deeply serious and which dazzlingly questions the nature of theatrical illusion. --Michael Billington Guardian on An Octoroon A coruscating comedy of resolved history... Strange as it seems, a work based on a terminally dated play from more than 150 years ago may turn out to be this decade's most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today. --Ben Brantley New York Times on An Octoroon An Octoroon isn't just an alternative to the irony-free 'black American theater' of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson; it's part of it--and part of many other things, too, because Jacobs-Jenkins's surrealism grows out of naturalism, the strange circumstances that make us open our mouths, hoping to be heard, even as we forget to listen. --Hilton Als New Yorker on An Octoroon Appropriate feels entirely original and upsetting in new ways... It asks audiences to understand the hatred, the anger and the pathologies that evolved as a result of our racist past. Eventually the [family's] house buckles under the weight of those emotions, underscoring the metaphor. The effect is visceral, reverberating for days afterward. --Joanne Ostrow Denver Post on Appropriate An Octoroon is a meta-dramatic meditation and deconstructive masterpiece... Jacobs-Jenkins writes brilliantly about race in America, and the cultural legacy employed in the service of tyranny since the earliest days of this nation. --Chris Jones Chicago Tribune on An Octoroon Appropriate is a highly charged and ambitiously sprawling drama... The author finds opportunities to startle us just as we're settling back to enjoy the familiar spectacle of flamboyant family dysfunction... There's no denying that Jacobs-Jenkins is one of the rising stars in the American theater. --Charles McNulty LA Times on Appropriate A very fine, subversively original new play... Appropriate is, at heart, a ghost story, in the most profound sense. --Ben Brantley New York Times on Appropriate

""A very fine, subversively original new play... Appropriate is, at heart, a ghost story, in the most profound sense."" -- Ben Brantley * New York Times on Appropriate * ""Appropriate is a highly charged and ambitiously sprawling drama... The author finds opportunities to startle us just as we're settling back to enjoy the familiar spectacle of flamboyant family dysfunction... There's no denying that Jacobs-Jenkins is one of the rising stars in the American theater."" -- Charles McNulty * LA Times on Appropriate * ""An Octoroon is a meta-dramatic meditation and deconstructive masterpiece... Jacobs-Jenkins writes brilliantly about race in America, and the cultural legacy employed in the service of tyranny since the earliest days of this nation."" -- Chris Jones * Chicago Tribune on An Octoroon * ""A work that is infinitely playful and deeply serious and which dazzlingly questions the nature of theatrical illusion."" -- Michael Billington * Guardian on An Octoroon * ""A coruscating comedy of resolved history... Strange as it seems, a work based on a terminally dated play from more than 150 years ago may turn out to be this decade's most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today."" -- Ben Brantley * New York Times on An Octoroon * ""Appropriate feels entirely original and upsetting in new ways... It asks audiences to understand the hatred, the anger and the pathologies that evolved as a result of our racist past. Eventually the [family's] house buckles under the weight of those emotions, underscoring the metaphor. The effect is visceral, reverberating for days afterward."" -- Joanne Ostrow * Denver Post on Appropriate * ""An Octoroon isn't just an alternative to the irony-free `black American theater' of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson; it's part of it-and part of many other things, too, because Jacobs-Jenkins's surrealism grows out of naturalism, the strange circumstances that make us open our mouths, hoping to be heard, even as we forget to listen."" -- Hilton Als * New Yorker on An Octoroon *

A very fine, subversively original new play... Appropriate is, at heart, a ghost story, in the most profound sense. -- Ben Brantley * New York Times on Appropriate * Appropriate is a highly charged and ambitiously sprawling drama... The author finds opportunities to startle us just as we're settling back to enjoy the familiar spectacle of flamboyant family dysfunction... There's no denying that Jacobs-Jenkins is one of the rising stars in the American theater. -- Charles McNulty * LA Times on Appropriate * An Octoroon is a meta-dramatic meditation and deconstructive masterpiece... Jacobs-Jenkins writes brilliantly about race in America, and the cultural legacy employed in the service of tyranny since the earliest days of this nation. -- Chris Jones * Chicago Tribune on An Octoroon * A work that is infinitely playful and deeply serious and which dazzlingly questions the nature of theatrical illusion. -- Michael Billington * Guardian on An Octoroon * A coruscating comedy of resolved history... Strange as it seems, a work based on a terminally dated play from more than 150 years ago may turn out to be this decade's most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today. -- Ben Brantley * New York Times on An Octoroon * Appropriate feels entirely original and upsetting in new ways... It asks audiences to understand the hatred, the anger and the pathologies that evolved as a result of our racist past. Eventually the [family's] house buckles under the weight of those emotions, underscoring the metaphor. The effect is visceral, reverberating for days afterward. -- Joanne Ostrow * Denver Post on Appropriate * An Octoroon isn't just an alternative to the irony-free `black American theater' of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson; it's part of it-and part of many other things, too, because Jacobs-Jenkins's surrealism grows out of naturalism, the strange circumstances that make us open our mouths, hoping to be heard, even as we forget to listen. -- Hilton Als * New Yorker on An Octoroon *

Author Information

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins'splays include Everybody(Signature Theatre, PulitzerPrize finalist), War (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre, PulitzerPrize finalist), Appropriate (Signature Theatre, ObieAward), An Octoroon (SohoRep., Obie Award) and Neighbors(The Public Theater). Heis a Residency Five playwrightat Signature Theatre and undercommission from LCT3/LincolnCenter Theater, the ManhattanTheatre Club/SloanInitiative Grant, and theSteppenwolf Theatre Company.His recent honors include the Charles Wintour Awardfor Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard,a London Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright,a MacArthur Fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize forDrama, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels InternationalFoundation Theater Award, the Steinberg PlaywrightAward, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. Hesits on the board of Soho Rep., and, with Annie Baker, is theAssociate Co-Director of the Hunter College MFA Programin Playwriting, where he is also a Master-Artist-in-Residence.

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