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Julia Jarcho

{{short description|American dramatist}}

{{Infobox writer

|image =

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| name = Julia Jarcho

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| birth_place = New York City, New York, United States

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| occupation = Playwright, Director, Poet, Professor

| nationality = American

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| genre = Experimental

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| notableworks = Grimly Handsome (2013)

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| website = [http://minortheater.org Minor Theater]

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Julia Jarcho is an American experimental playwright and director and professor of theater and performance studies. The NYC company Minor Theater produces and debuts her new works. She won the 2013 Obie for Best New American Play for Grimly Handsome.{{cite web|url=https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/obie-awards-honor-detroit-and-grimly-handsome/|title=Obie Awards Honor 'Detroit' and 'Grimly Handsome'|first=Patrick|last=Healy|work=The New York Times|date=20 May 2013}} Chief theater critic for The New York Times Ben Brantley has called her "a queen of experimental mayhem".{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/theater/the-terrifying-review.html|title=Review: 'The Terrifying' Has Paranoia and the Feeling Something's Wrong|first=Ben|last=Brantley|date=19 March 2017|work=The New York Times}} Jarcho is an Associate Professor and Head the MFA Playwriting Program at Brown University.

Background

Jarcho grew up in New York City, where she attended Hunter College High School.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/23/movies/theater-review-works-by-playwrights-too-young-to-drink.html|title=THEATER REVIEW; Works by Playwrights Too Young to Drink|first=Bruce|last=Weber|date=23 November 2001|work=The New York Times}}{{cite web|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/2/7/soundbites-of-a-generation-in-between/|title=Soundbites of a Generation|publisher=FM: The Harvard Crimson Magazine|first=M. R.|last=Brewster|date=7 February 2002}} She graduated from Harvard College with a degree in literature.{{cite news|url=http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/05/estimable-seniors.html|title=Estimable Seniors|date=1 May 2003|work=Harvard Magazine|issue=May–June 2003}} Her senior thesis, Going on: Wittgenstein's Liveness and the Grammar of Theater, included the production of an original play, Grammar.{{cite web|url=http://hollis.harvard.edu/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=HVD&search_scope=default_scope&docId=HVD_ALEPH009763388&fn=permalink|title=Going on: Wittgenstein's liveness and the grammar of theater|first=Julia|last=Jarcho|date=1 January 2003|publisher=Hollis.harvard.edu}} She received her PhD from UC Berkeley's Rhetoric Department in 2013.{{cite web|url=http://rhetoric.berkeley.edu/graduate-program/graduate-placement |title=Placement of Graduate Students | Rhetoric Department | UC Berkeley |website=Rhetoric.berkeley.edu |date= |accessdate=2017-04-25}}

Career

Jarcho began her career in experimental theater as a performer, acting in plays by Richard Maxwell in Downtown New York theaters such as the Ontological Theater{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/theater/farewell-to-the-second-floor-theater-at-st-marks-church.html|title=Farewell to the Second-Floor Theater at St. Mark's Church|first=Alexis|last=Soloski|date=19 June 2014|work=The New York Times}} and Soho Rep.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/06/theater/theater-review-drone-on-the-range-adventures-in-the-mild-mild-west.html|title=Drone on the Range: Adventures in the Mild, Mild West|date=6 April 1999|work=The New York Times|first=Peter|last=Marks}}

=Plays=

Nursery, written when she was a senior at Hunter College High School, was a winner of the Young Playwrights Festival National Playwriting Competition and was performed at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2001.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/23/movies/theater-review-works-by-playwrights-too-young-to-drink.html|title=Works by Playwrights Too Young to Drink|date=23 November 2001|work=The New York Times|first=Bruce|last=Weber}}

Her adaptation of Alfred Noyes’ poem, The Highwayman was presented at the NTUSA performance space in Brooklyn in December 2004 and published in The Best American Short Plays 2005-2006.{{cite book|url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/223807521|title=The Best American Short Plays 2005-2006|first1=Barbara|last1=Parisi|first2=David|last2=Ives|first3=Quiara Alegría|last3=Hudes|first4=Jules|last4=Tasca|first5=Pamela|last5=Sneed|first6=Carol K|last6=Mack|first7=Michael|last7=Roderick|first8=Jeni|last8=Mahoney|first9=Dano|last9=Madden|first10=James|last10=Armstrong|first11=Cary|last11=Pepper|first12=Adam|last12=Kraar|first13=Joan|last13=Lipkin|first14=Cara|last14=Restaino|first15=Julia|last15=Jarcho|first16=Murray|last16=Schisgal|date=1 January 2008|publisher=Open WorldCat|isbn=9781557837134|oclc=223807521}}

Delmar was staged at the Prenzlkasper theater in Berlin, Germany, in October 2005. Jarcho later collaborated with visual artist, Meredith James, who adapted the play as a video installation at the Jack Hanley Gallery.{{cite web|url=http://meredith-james.com/work/delmar/1 |title=Work : Delmar |publisher=Meredith James |date= |accessdate=2017-04-25}}

As a member of the playwrights' collective, 13P, Jarcho's American Treasure was staged at Paradise Factory Theatre in November 2009. The New York Times called the play, "an odd, dense, oblique but haunting work" and noted that Jarcho is "a remarkably clever, bewitching writer and a master of stylized behavior."{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/theater/reviews/09american.html|title=Historical Whodunit by Julia Jarcho at Paradise Factory|first=Anita|last=Gates|date=8 December 2009|work=The New York Times}}

Grimly Handsome premiered at the Incubator Arts Project in January 2013 as part of the Other Forces Festival and won the Obie for Best New American Play that year. In January 2015 it was remounted at JACK in Brooklyn.

Other productions by Jarcho include: Dreamless Land which premiered with New York City Players at the Abrons Arts Center in November 2011; Nomads, directed by Alice Reagan, was the final play performed at the Incubator Arts Project in June 2014; Every Angel is Brutal, directed by Knud Adams, was part of Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks 2016 lineup and staged at the Wild Project.

Her most recent play, The Terrifying, premiered at the Abrons Arts Center in March 2017.

=Style=

The playwright Mac Wellman described Jarcho's work as a writer and director as “Menippean satire...dealing with the whole analysis of what theater is.”{{cite web|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323485704578255950313410458|title=Every Golden Age Needs a Sage|first=Lizzie|last=Simon|date=21 January 2013|work=WSJ}}{{subscription required}}{{cite web|url=http://playwrightslocal4181.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Every-Golden-Age-Needs-a-Sage-WSJ-2013.pdf|title=Every Golden Age Needs a Sage|first=Lizzie|last=Simon|date=21 January 2013|work=WSJ|via=playwrightslocal.org}}

Structurally, Jarcho's plays have employed unconventional storytelling techniques{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/theater/reviews/julia-jarchos-dreamless-land-review.html|title=Julia Jarcho's 'Dreamless Land' - Review|first=Rachel|last=Saltz|date=10 November 2011|work=The New York Times}}—what the New Yorker and others have called, "non-linear,"{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/reality-show|title=Reality Onstage|date=4 May 2015|magazine=The New Yorker|first=Hilton|last=Als}}{{cite web|url=https://www.nyunews.com/2015/11/05/professor-playwright-julia-jarcho-combines-academia-and-theater/|title=Professor, playwright Julia Jarcho combines academia and theater|first=Abraham|last=Gross|work=Washington Square News|date=5 November 2015}} and Time Out New York and New York Theatre Review have referred to as "shifting" narratives.{{cite web|url=https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/julia-jarcho-interview-theater-is-fundamentally-embarrassing|title=Julia Jarcho interview: 'Theater is fundamentally embarrassing'|work=Time Out New York|first=Eliza|last=Bent|date=3 June 2014}}{{cite web|url=http://newyorktheatrereview.blogspot.com/2014/06/teddy-nicholas-on-julia-jarchos-nomads.html|first=Teddy|last=Nicholas|date=9 June 2014|title=Teddy Nicholas on Julia Jarcho's Nomads at the Incubator Arts Project|work=New York Theatre Review}} Actors in Jarcho's productions often perform multiple roles to engage audiences in questions of coherent selfhood and stable identity.{{cite web|url=https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/grimly-handsome|title=Grimly Handsome|date=9 January 2013|work=Time Out New York|first=Helen|last=Shaw}}

Works

=As playwright and director=

  • Pathetic (Minor Theater, June 2019)
  • The Terrifying (Minor Theater, March–April 2017)
  • Grimly Handsome (Incubator Arts Project, January 2013 and JACK, January 2015)
  • Dreamless Land (New York City Players, November 2011)
  • American Treasure (13P, New York, November 2009 and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, May 2009)
  • Aria Da Capo (Target Margin, New York, June 2009)
  • All I Do Is Dream Of You (Festival 100º/Sophiensaele, Berlin, February 2006)
  • The Highwayman (NTUSA performance space, New York, December 2004)

=As playwright=

  • Every Angel is Brutal, directed by Knud Adams (Clubbed Thumb, May 2016)
  • Nomads, directed by Alice Reagan (Incubator Arts Project, May/June 2014)
  • A Small Hole, directed by Alice Reagan (Performance Lab 115, NYC Fringe Festival, August 2006)
  • Nursery, directed by Brett W. Reynolds (Young Playwrights Festival/Cherry Lane Theater, New York, Fall 2001; directed by Mark Ravenhill at UC Davis, Fall 2005)

Awards and honors

Jarcho is the recipient of the Mark O’Donnell Prize, a Doris Duke Impact Award, an Obie for Best New American Play, a Berrilla Kerr Award for Excellence in Playwriting, and a Sarah Verdone Writing Award. She has been a resident at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Playwrights Foundation, the Macdowell Colony, and SPACE at Ryder Farm.

Teaching and research

Jarcho is an Associate Professor and Head the MFA Playwriting Program at Brown University.{{cite web|url= https://www.brown.edu/academics/theatre-arts-performance-studies/news/2019-12/please-join-us-welcoming-new-head-playwriting-taps |title= Please join Us In Welcoming The New Head of Playwriting At TAPS | website=Brown.edu|date= 22 June 2023 }}{{cite web | url=https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jjarcho | title=Jarcho, Julia }}

She previously taught in the Dramatic Literature department at New York University.

Her first academic book is Writing and the Modern Stage: Theater Beyond Drama (2017).{{cite web|url=http://english.fas.nyu.edu/object/juliajarcho.html |title=Jarcho, Julia | English | New York University |website=English.fas.nyu.edu |date= |accessdate=2017-04-25}}

Publications

  • Nursery in Rush Hour II: Bad Boys {{ISBN|0-38-573033-0}}
  • The Highwayman in The Best American Short Plays 2005-2006 {{ISBN|978-1-557-83713-4}}
  • American Treasure in {{WorldCat|oclc=812534950|name=13P: The Complete Plays}}
  • Minor Theater: Three Plays {{ISBN|0-98-973936-8}}
  • Writing and the Modern Stage: Theater Beyond Drama {{ISBN|978-1-107-13235-1}}
  • Grimly Handsome {{ISBN|978-1-350-06636-6}}

References

{{Reflist|30em}}

External links

  • [http://minortheater.org/ Minor Theater]
  • [http://english.fas.nyu.edu/object/juliajarcho.html NYU Faculty Biography]

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Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:American theatre directors

Category:American women theatre directors

Category:Obie Award recipients

Category:Postmodern theatre

Category:Harvard College alumni

Category:Hunter College High School alumni

Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni

Category:American women dramatists and playwrights

Category:People from New York City

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Brown University faculty

Category:American women academics