In 2015, as the lights came up for intermission during the play I was seeing called Gloria, I was left completely speechless. I could not even get up to go use the bathroom. I had to take a minute and think about what I had just witnessed. Gloria is the darkest, most sobering, uniquely American workplace comedy I have ever seen on a stage and has one of the greatest intermission act endings ever. Who the fuck wrote this? I thought to myself once finally in line to go pee, knowing full well I would hunt them down and make them my best friend no matter what it would take.
The man who wrote that play is Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Several months later, I would coincidentally share a stage with him when we both appeared as featured storytellers at The Moth storytelling series at City Winery in NYC. That night, I told Branden how much I loved his play, and he told me how much he loved Dark Sparkler, the poetry book I had written about the lives and deaths of child star actresses. A wedding date was set and the rest is history.
Gloria would go on to be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (it should’ve won, but whatever) and Branden would go on to be one of the most prolific and important voices and advocates for artists of his generation. (Don’t @ me, Branden. I can see you rolling your eyes, but I stand before a jury of my peers and swear by this.) Branden is a professor at Yale University and recently received EIGHT Tony Award nominations for his critically acclaimed Broadway play, Appropriate. The play, led by Sarah Paulson, has been extended more times than my acrylic nails at age sixteen (but is set to close this month, so get your tickets!) and has deeply resonated with audiences and critics alike for its searing look at the legacies of hatred told through one particular family’s reckoning with its own history.
One of the people Branden’s play resonated with was renowned New York Times theater critic Jesse Green who recanted his original review of the play from 2014 after seeing the revival in 2023. I cannot emphasize enough just how huge it is for a major theater critic, the likes of Jesse Green, to not only see the error of his previous critique, but to then write about his own critical blind spots in an official Broadway review for a paper of record.
Branden is a brilliant writer, but his greatest strength is behind the scenes in his ability to connect artists to those who love and want to support the arts. Simply put: he knows how to make shit happen, and he makes everyone feel empowered and useful and seen in the process. This ability—to see and facilitate the artistic big picture at such a high level—is a gift and not something I believe can be learned or taught. Branden has it in spades. (Dear reader, I so badly wanted to write “Branden has it in a royal flush,” to really wink at you about how smart I am when it comes to card game metaphors, but then I thought of Aly, LITD’s managing editor, exasperatedly sighing upon reading it and that was that. But not THAT enough to not put it here in parentheses.)
For our June Further Ado interview, I talked with Branden about bringing a story to life, about his origin story as a writer, our pitch for an Andrew Scott supermarket television show, and so much more.
Love,
Amber
P.S.
The Tony Awards air this Sunday, June 16 on CBS. To find out how to watch them, click here.
More from today’s conversation:
Stereophonic by David Adjmi and Will Butler
Sarah Paulson
Lila Neugebauer
Hamilton
Terrance Hayes
Patricia Smith
Claudia Rankine
YoungArts program
Tessa Thompson
Laurel Schmidt
Jack Hirschman
Wanda Coleman
Free Stallion by Amber Tamblyn
The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Commedia dell'arte
Lucille Lortel Awards
Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Jaja's African Hair Braiding by Jocelyn Bioh
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
Stick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond
Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill
Glenn Ligon
"Heirlooms and Accessories" by Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall discusses "Heirlooms and Accessories" (video)
White Girls by Hilton Als
Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America edited by James Allen
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Vineyard Arts Project
Obie Awards
Johanna Day
Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition edited by Amber Tamblyn
8 Mile
Roxane Gay (Website, Substack)
Annie Hall
Diane Keaton
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson
Talley's Folly by Lanford Wilson
Joan of Arcadia
"Bossy" by Lindsay Lohan
Mean Girls
"Rehab" by Amy Winehouse
Get Out
Marsha Norman
"Neighbors" by Zach Williams
Inspector Maigret book series by Georges Simenon
Ripley
Cheo Bourne
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
The Book of Light by Lucille Clifton
"blessing the boats" by Lucille Clifton
Generations by Lucille Clifton
Open Your Mouth Like a Bell by Mindy Nettifee
Nox by Anne Carson
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
Meadowlands by Louise Glück
A Village Life by Louise Glück
Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan
Whiting Award
Robert Lowell
Ada Limón's Further Ado interview
