CJ Hopkins
{{short description|American playwright, novelist, and political satirist}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = C.J. Hopkins
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| image = CJ Hopkins Summer 2018.jpg
| caption = Hopkins in 2018.
| pronunciation =
| birth_name = Christopher Hopkins
| birth_place = Miami, Florida, U.S.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}
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| nationality = American
| other_names = Christopher Hopkins
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| occupation = {{hlist|Satirist|playwright|author|novelist}}
| years_active = 1990s–present
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| website = {{URL|https://consentfactory.org/}}
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C. J. Hopkins (born 1961) is an American playwright, novelist, and political satirist. Among his works are the plays Horse Country, screwmachine/eyecandy and The Extremists.
Career
=Early works=
Hopkins was a 1994 Drama League of New York Developing Artist Fellow and a 1995 Resident Artist/Jerome Foundation Fellow at Mabou Mines/Suite.{{cite web |title=Program History/Artist Alumni |url=https://www.maboumines.org/residency/program-historyartist-alumni/ |website=Mabou Mines |accessdate=3 November 2019}}
=''Horse Country''=
His 1992 play, Horse Country, had its UK premiere at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Lyn Gardner in The Guardian wrote: "Hopkins's two-hander brings the spirit of Godot to America's bars and puts the bourbon in Beckett. It feels like a serious piece of theatre rather than fringe fluff."{{cite news|last=Gardner|first=Lyn|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2002/aug/20/theatre.artsfeatures|title=Horse Country|work=The Guardian|date=20 August 2002|access-date=5 November 2019}} It won a Scotsman Fringe First for New Writing and the 2002 Scotsman Best of the Fringe Firsts Award,{{cite news |title=The Scottish Playground {{!}} The Village Voice |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2002/09/10/the-scottish-playground/ |accessdate=1 November 2019 |work=The Village Voice}}{{cite web |last1=Sumi |first1=Glenn |title=Horse country |url=https://nowtoronto.com/culture/stage/horse-country/ |website=NOW Magazine |accessdate=3 November 2019 |language=en-us |date=27 March 2003}} and later won the 2004 Best of The Adelaide Fringe Award. Following its London premiere at Riverside Studios,{{cite web |title=Edinburgh Horse Country Rides In for London Double |url=https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/london/E8821040656740/Edinburgh+Horse+Country+Rides+in+for+London+Double.html |website=WhatsOnStage.com |accessdate=3 November 2019}} Horse Country toured the UK, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.{{cite web |title=PAST SHOWS - HORSE COUNTRY by CJ Hopkins 2002 (USA) |url=http://www.theatretoursinternational.com/PastShows/PSHC.html |website=www.theatretoursinternational.com |accessdate=3 November 2019}}{{cite news |title=Was that a seal I saw you with last night? |url=https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/arts/was-that-a-seal-i-saw-you-with-last-night/article1334300/ |accessdate=3 November 2019 |work=The Globe and Mail |date=18 April 2003 |language=en-CA}}{{cite web |title=Harbourfront Centre - World Stage 2012 {{!}} History of World Stage |url=http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/worldstage2012/history.cfm |website=www.harbourfrontcentre.com |publisher=Harbourfront Centre |accessdate=3 November 2019}}{{Cite web|url=http://fringevault.com.au/mini_sites/awards/2004|title=Fringe Vault|website=fringevault.com.au}}{{Cite web|url=http://theatreguide.tripod.com/htm_events/reviews_fringe_2004.htm|title=ATG Events - Reviews|website=theatreguide.tripod.com}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsprojects.com.au/tours/clancy-productions-horse-country|title=Horse Country :: Arts Projects Australia|website=www.artsprojects.com.au}}{{Cite web|url=https://8weekly.nl/special/theater-specials/dagelijks-verslag-noorderzon-festival-noorderzon-verblindt/|title=Dagelijks verslag Noorderzon festival - Noorderzon verblindt|first1=Mark de|last1=Vries|first2=Lennard|last2=Dost|first3=Rik|last3=Visschedijk|first4=Wideke|last4=Piël|first5=Jan Auke|last5=Brink|date=August 29, 2004|website=8weekly.nl}}
=Later works=
Hopkins' play screwmachine/eyecandy was copyrighted in 1994, but updated when it was performed a decade later.{{cite news|last=Blankenship|first=Mark|url=https://variety.com/2006/legit/reviews/screwmachine-eyecandy-1200516923/|title=screwmachine/eyecandy|work=Variety|date=April 16, 2005|access-date=November 5, 2019}} A production ran during the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Assembly Rooms when The Scotsman described it as a "dark and twisted comedy" about the American game show in which "the excesses of American culture are held up to the light, roundly lampooned and shown to be the poisonous, culturally carcinogenic threats that they really are."{{cite news|url=https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle-2-15039/screwmachine-eyecandy-1-1064085|title=Screwmachine/Eyecandy|work=The Scotsman|date=August 8, 2005|access-date=November 5, 2019}} It received a Scotsman Fringe First Award for New Writing.{{Cite web|last=Adam|first=Karla|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/theater/top-prizes-at-edinburgh-fringe.html|title=Top Prizes at Edinburgh Fringe|work=The New York Times|date=August 29, 2005}} The US production was presented at 59E59 Theaters{{cite web |title=screwmachine/eyecandy {{!}} Theater {{!}} reviews, guides, things to do, film |url=https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/screwmachine-eyecandy |website=Time Out New York |language=en}} in New York in 2006. Mark Blankenship wrote in his review for Variety: "Although he apes the themes of everything from 1984 to Series 7, a film about a murderous reality show, Hopkins delivers his dogmatism with heavy-handed arrogance." A production was presented at the PushPush theater in Decatur, Georgia in 2008,{{cite news |last1=Holman |first1=Curt |title=Theater Review - screwmachine/eyecandy at PushPush Theater |url=https://creativeloafing.com/content-181088-theater-review---screwmachine-eyecandy-at-pushpush |accessdate=10 November 2019 |work=Creative Loafing |date=December 10, 2008}} and it was performed at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2017.{{cite news |last1=Janiak |first1=Lily |title=A case for the Fringe Festival as central |url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/performance/article/A-case-for-the-Fringe-Festival-as-central-12192223.php |accessdate=10 November 2019 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=September 12, 2017}}
Also in 2006, Hopkins' commission by the Free University of Berlin to write and direct a site-specific work, The Insurgency, was staged in German at the university's Philological Library.{{Cite web|url=https://www.fu-berlin.de/presse/publikationen/tsp/archiv/2006/ts_20060211/ts_20060211_17.html|title=Bibliothek als Bühne|date=September 21, 2006|website=www.fu-berlin.de|publisher=Free University of Berlin}}
His 2009 play The Extremists, commissioned by 7 Stages and directed by Walter D. Asmus, premiered in Berlin and Atlanta in 2010.{{cite web |last1=Holman |first1=Curt |title=Theater Review - The Extremists disarms weapons of mass distraction |url=https://creativeloafing.com/content-181101-Theater-Review---The-Extremists-disarms-weapons-of-mass-distraction |website=Creative Loafing |accessdate=3 November 2019 |language=en}}
Hopkins' debut novel, Zone 23, was published in 2017. It "describes a post-catastrophic, ‘genetically-corrected’ corporatist society in which dissent has been pathologised". Dactyl Review described it as "a witty, nasty, erudite, Pynchonesque narrative, full of fleshed-out sleazy characters and a hyper-detailed alternative world".{{cite web |last1=Alexander |first1=V. N. |title=Zone 23 by C. J. Hopkins |url=https://dactylreview.com/2024/04/14/zone-23-by-c-j-hopkins/ |website=Dactyl Review |access-date=21 April 2024 |language=en |date=14 April 2024}}
Hopkins moved to Germany in 2004. In 2022, he tweeted pictures of the cover of his essay-collection The Rise of the New Normal Reich (2022). The cover included a swastika, and he was charged according to German law regarding "propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization." Reporter James Kirchick commented that "One can call his method of argument likening anti-COVID policies to Nazism misguided, intellectually lazy, or tasteless—I personally find it to be all three—but endorsing "the aims" of National Socialism it is not."{{cite news |last1=Kirchick |first1=James|authorlink=James Kirchick |title=What Happens Where Free Speech Is Unprotected |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/hopkins-germany-freedom-speech/676926/ |access-date=31 January 2024 |work=The Atlantic |date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}
Bibliography
{{BLP sources section|date=November 2019}}
= Plays =
- Horse Country, Bloomsbury Publishing, {{ISBN|0413774074}} (2004)
- screwmachine/eyecandy, Broadway Play Publishing Inc., {{ISBN|0881453382}} (2007)
- The Extremists, Broadway Play Publishing Inc., {{ISBN|0881454419}} (2010)
- The Insurgency, Bordercrossing Berlin, Verlagshaus J. Frank (2006)
- cunnilinguistics
- How To Entertain the Rich
- The Installation
- A Place Like This{{cite web |title=OOB's Theatorium Gets Out of A Place Like This, June 17 |url=http://www.playbill.com/article/oobs-theatorium-gets-out-of-a-place-like-this-june-17-com-90021 |website=Playbill |accessdate=3 November 2019 |language=en |date=2000}}
=Essays=
- Trumpocalypse: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. I (2016-2017), Consent Factory Publishing (self-published), 2019 {{ISBN|3982146402}}
- The War on Populism: Consent Factory Essays Vol. II (2018-2019), Consent Factory Publishing (self-published), 2020, {{ISBN|9783982146416}}
- The rise of the new normal Reich: Consent Factory essays. Vol. III (2020-2021), Consent Factory Publishing (self-published), 2022, {{ISBN|9783982146423}}
= Novels =
- Zone 23, (self published, 2017) {{ISBN|978-3000555268}}{{cite web |last1=Miller |first1=Daniel |title=It's up to us to resist the insanity of the 'new normal' |url=https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/cj-hopkins-the-insanity-of-the-new-normal/ |website=The Conservative Woman |access-date=28 June 2021 |date=2021-05-22}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official website|http://cjhopkins.com/}}
- [https://www.racket.news/p/meet-the-censored-cj-hopkins-critic Meet the Censored: C.J. Hopkins, Critic of the "New Normal"], 2021 interview with Matt Taibbi
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Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
Category:21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:American male dramatists and playwrights
Category:Screenwriting instructors
Category:American male novelists