J. T. Rogers
Encyclopedia
J. T. Rogers is an internationally recognized American
playwright
who lives in Brooklyn
, New York
. He is a graduate of the professional actor-training program of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
where he was made an Honorary Doctor of Performing Arts in 2009.
, in early 1994, must confront life-and-death realities of the Rwandan Genocide
, had its world première at the Cottesloe Theatre, Royal National Theatre
, London, in association with Out of Joint, in May 2006. It then toured throughout the UK and was performed on BBC radio. Its American premiere was at the Roundabout Theatre in September 2007. For the play, Rogers received the prestigious Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award at the 2007 William Inge
Theatre Festival in Independence, KS. The Overwhelming has since been done throughout the world, selected as a Top 10 Play of the Year by Time Magazine, Time Out New York and the Chicago Tribune, and nominated for Best Play of the Year by London’s South Bank Show and Boston’s Elliot Norton Awards.
In 2009, Rogers was the sole American playwright along with 11 British authors to create The Great Game: Afghanistan
for the Tricycle Theatre, London. The cycle of plays was a sensation, garnering an Olivier nomination for all involved. Rogers has since turned his contribution into the full-length play Blood and Gifts
, which debuted at the Lyttelton Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London, in September 2010, starring Lloyd Owen
.
J. T. Rogers’s best known play is Madagascar, set in a hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome, is about a mysterious disappearance that haunts the life of the plays’ three characters. It was commissioned by and had its world premiere at the Salt Lake Acting Company, where it received the American Theatre Critics Association's 2004 M. Elizabeth Osborne Aware and the 2005 Pinter Review Prize for Drama, which included its first publication by the University of Tampa
Press and a related public dramatic reading. It was also a finalist for the ATCA's Steinberg New Play Award and performed at the Summer Play Festival in New York City
in July 2005. In 2010, the play had its Australian premiere at the Melbourne Theatre Company and its European debut at London’s Theatre 503
.
Rogers’s other plays include White People, which had its world première at the Philadelphia Theatre Company and then received the L.A. Drama Critics Circle and John Barrymore
Award nominations for "Best Play of the Year." The revised play was produced by Starry Night Entertainment Off-Broadway
in 2009, and has been seen at the English Theatre of Berlin. The play will be seen in repertory with Madagascar at the Road Theatre in Los Angeles
in 2010. His Seeing the Elephant was nominated for the Kesselring Prize for "Best New American Play," and his play Murmuring in a Dead Tongue was produced by Epic Rep, in New York City, where he is a company member, in its 2003-2004 season. In 2008 it was mounted as part of the inaugural DC Theater Alliance. His works have been seen at the Williamstown Theater Festival, New Theatre of Coral Gables, Florida, New Actors Union Theatre (Moscow), Road Theatre (Los Angeles), and often at the Salt Lake Acting Company. He is a founding member of The Next Stage, in New York City, which produced his plays Bob Comes to Life, Above the Beasts, and Frankfurt. In September 2004, he was artist-in-residence at the Eugene O'Neill
Center. He has also been a guest artist at Truman State University
(Missouri), and lectured at the schools of drama at Columbia University
, Northwestern
, Yale
, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
and the University of Utah
and at the Claremont McKenna College
School of Economics.
He was selected as one of ten playwrights in the United States
to receive a NEA
/TCG
Theatre Residency for 2004-2005, through which he was playwright in residence at the Salt Lake Acting Company (Salt Lake City). In 2004 and 2008 Rogers was awarded playwriting fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts
. His plays are published by Faber and Faber in the US and UK and in acting editions in the US through Dramatists Play Service
and Playscripts. Rogers is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a resident playwright at New Dramatists.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
who lives in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He is a graduate of the professional actor-training program of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
where he was made an Honorary Doctor of Performing Arts in 2009.
Career
Rogers is known for plays that deal with what he called “theater that engages the public realm” in his much-discussed Laura Pels Keynote address to the New York theater community in 2008. The speech was published as an essay in American Theatre magazine called “Writing Without Borders.” His play The Overwhelming, in which an American family who arrive in Kigali, RwandaRwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, in early 1994, must confront life-and-death realities of the Rwandan Genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
, had its world première at the Cottesloe Theatre, Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, London, in association with Out of Joint, in May 2006. It then toured throughout the UK and was performed on BBC radio. Its American premiere was at the Roundabout Theatre in September 2007. For the play, Rogers received the prestigious Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award at the 2007 William Inge
William Inge
William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize...
Theatre Festival in Independence, KS. The Overwhelming has since been done throughout the world, selected as a Top 10 Play of the Year by Time Magazine, Time Out New York and the Chicago Tribune, and nominated for Best Play of the Year by London’s South Bank Show and Boston’s Elliot Norton Awards.
In 2009, Rogers was the sole American playwright along with 11 British authors to create The Great Game: Afghanistan
The Great Game: Afghanistan
The Great Game: Afghanistan is a British series of short plays on the history of Afghanistan and foreign intervention there, from the First Anglo-Afghan War to the present day. It is organised into three sets of four plays and draws its name from the 19th and 20th century Great Game, a geopolitical...
for the Tricycle Theatre, London. The cycle of plays was a sensation, garnering an Olivier nomination for all involved. Rogers has since turned his contribution into the full-length play Blood and Gifts
Blood and Gifts
Blood and Gifts is a play by the American playwright J. T. Rogers. Its subject is the struggle for control of Afghanistan during the 1980s, from the American, Russian, British, Pakistani, and secular Afghan points of view. It premiered in September 2010 at the Lyttelton Theatre, starring Lloyd...
, which debuted at the Lyttelton Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London, in September 2010, starring Lloyd Owen
Lloyd Owen
Lloyd Owen is a British actor of Welsh descent. Trained at the National Youth Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he is probably best known for his portrayal of Indiana Jones's father Professor Dr. Henry Jones, Sr...
.
J. T. Rogers’s best known play is Madagascar, set in a hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome, is about a mysterious disappearance that haunts the life of the plays’ three characters. It was commissioned by and had its world premiere at the Salt Lake Acting Company, where it received the American Theatre Critics Association's 2004 M. Elizabeth Osborne Aware and the 2005 Pinter Review Prize for Drama, which included its first publication by the University of Tampa
University of Tampa
The University of Tampa , is a private, co-educational university in Downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. In 2006, the University celebrated its 75th anniversary...
Press and a related public dramatic reading. It was also a finalist for the ATCA's Steinberg New Play Award and performed at the Summer Play Festival in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in July 2005. In 2010, the play had its Australian premiere at the Melbourne Theatre Company and its European debut at London’s Theatre 503
Theatre 503
Theatre503 is located at 503 Battersea Park Road in Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth, above the Latchmere pub. It is a performing arts venue which specialises in new work.-History:...
.
Rogers’s other plays include White People, which had its world première at the Philadelphia Theatre Company and then received the L.A. Drama Critics Circle and John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
Award nominations for "Best Play of the Year." The revised play was produced by Starry Night Entertainment Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
in 2009, and has been seen at the English Theatre of Berlin. The play will be seen in repertory with Madagascar at the Road Theatre in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 2010. His Seeing the Elephant was nominated for the Kesselring Prize for "Best New American Play," and his play Murmuring in a Dead Tongue was produced by Epic Rep, in New York City, where he is a company member, in its 2003-2004 season. In 2008 it was mounted as part of the inaugural DC Theater Alliance. His works have been seen at the Williamstown Theater Festival, New Theatre of Coral Gables, Florida, New Actors Union Theatre (Moscow), Road Theatre (Los Angeles), and often at the Salt Lake Acting Company. He is a founding member of The Next Stage, in New York City, which produced his plays Bob Comes to Life, Above the Beasts, and Frankfurt. In September 2004, he was artist-in-residence at the Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
Center. He has also been a guest artist at Truman State University
Truman State University
Truman State University is a public liberal arts and sciences university in Missouri, United States and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. About 6,000 students attend Truman, pursuing degrees in 43 undergraduate and 9 Graduate programs. It is located in Kirksville in...
(Missouri), and lectured at the schools of drama at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Northwestern
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
and the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
and at the Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college and a member of the Claremont Colleges located in Claremont, California. The campus is located east of Downtown Los Angeles...
School of Economics.
He was selected as one of ten playwrights in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to receive a NEA
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
/TCG
TCG
TCG may stand for:* Geocentric Coordinate Time* Test Call Generator, piece of equipment used for testing in the telecommunications industry* TCG , the official debut studio album released in 2007 by The Cheetah Girls...
Theatre Residency for 2004-2005, through which he was playwright in residence at the Salt Lake Acting Company (Salt Lake City). In 2004 and 2008 Rogers was awarded playwriting fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts
New York Foundation for the Arts
The New York Foundation for the Arts was created in conjunction the in 1971. The organization gives grants to individual artists and writers and developing arts organizations with a mission to '.'-NYFA's Programs:...
. His plays are published by Faber and Faber in the US and UK and in acting editions in the US through Dramatists Play Service
Dramatists Play Service
Established in 1936 by members of the Dramatists Guild and the Society for Authors' Representatives, Dramatists Play Service, Inc. is a theatrical publishing and licensing house...
and Playscripts. Rogers is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a resident playwright at New Dramatists.
Plays
- The Overwhelming (2004)
- Madagascar (2004)
- Murmuring in a Dead Tongue (1998; 2003)
- Seeing the Elephant
- White People
- Above the Beasts
- Bob Comes to Life
- Frankfurt
- Penetrating Malaysia
- Guy Talk
- Lionel's Blue
- Chicks 'N Beer
- The Saddest Lines
- Blood and GiftsBlood and GiftsBlood and Gifts is a play by the American playwright J. T. Rogers. Its subject is the struggle for control of Afghanistan during the 1980s, from the American, Russian, British, Pakistani, and secular Afghan points of view. It premiered in September 2010 at the Lyttelton Theatre, starring Lloyd...
External links
- American Theatre Critics Association press release. Online posting. 11 Feb. 2005.
- Play Penn Press Release. 29 June 2006.
- The Overwhelming, by J. T. Rogers. Production information. Online posting. The Overwhelming (Out of Joint) produced in association with the Royal National Theatre. World première, London. May 2006.
- Rogers, J. T. Madagascar. Tampa: U of Tampa Press, 2005. New Theatre (Florida) press release
- Dramatists Play Service Company website
- "White People" Official Website
- New Dramatists Playwright Profile
- JT Rogers - Laura Pels Keynote Address
- The Independent - Ideas America Won't Entertain
- JT Rogers - Studio 180 Essay on Rwandan Genocide
- The Overwhelming - The New Statesmen (London)
See also
- Rwandan GenocideRwandan GenocideThe Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
- Bibliography of the Rwandan GenocideBibliography of the Rwandan GenocideThis is a bibliography for books and articles on the personal and general accounts, and the accountabilities, of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.-Personal accounts:...