Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

One of the most incredible and important things about the theater is that we're creating a safe space for all feelings, but…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I have a borderline-embarrassing obsession with pop music.

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

At the end of the day, most people just want to be valued. They want to feel they have put their time…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I'm not a really firm believer in theatre that is 'about anything.' I don't think theatre can be about anything other than…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I tried writing a novel, but plays were the thing that kept feeding me, asking me to come back, sit down and…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I feel like I'm put in a position where I have to engage with what people bring to my work, which is…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I go through phases of watching a ton of dance/performance, and I am bizarrely well-informed on the subject.

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

You get better at the thing you do by having to explain it to someone else. That, I think, totally makes my…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Somehow, whenever we think about race or blackness in relationship to art, we always come in kind of nervous. We always think…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

My dream was always to have an experience where an audience member would turn to another audience member, a stranger, and be…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I seem to belong to a boom moment of playwrights, and I'm always curious about how we all got here and what…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I actually don't read the press. All the writers I admire were significantly reclusive, and I'm still trying to figure out how…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

The first theater subscription I ever bought was the August Wilson season at Signature. I remember thinking a whole season to one…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I wrestle in a big way with August Wilson's work in that I at times admire it and at times feel infuriated…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

All my plays have these titles that are oddly tricky. I like that something can look like one thing but mean two…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Something that happens to me is that I'll write a play specifically from my own experience, and then I'll inevitably be told…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I identify as queer. I just don't know what any of these labels mean.

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I spent summers with my mother's parents in Arkansas, where religion felt very present. My grandmother was Baptist, and my grandfather was…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I don't hate people who colour-blind cast, but I hate people who colour-blind cast and pretend that they're not, who pretend that…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

The stuff I write about doesn't, like, necessarily leave people feeling warm and fuzzy. I'm writing in a territory that's, like, contested…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

All of my work is sort of fed by a question, a need to understand the world and why the world is…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

I was 23 when I wrote 'Neighbors,' and I definitely look back at it now and cringe a little bit. I was…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Things just kind of stick with me, and writing, for me, is always an investigation into my own feelings about them. I…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

My mother had a wall of degrees in our house, and she would walk me up to the wall and say, 'When…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

'An Octoroon' was written over about three years but premiered in 2014. I'm writing about America's relationship to its own history. Race…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins