Early in the conversation between Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and WashU Assistant Professor of Performing Arts Zachariah Ezer, which served as the university’s 2026 Morrin Lecture, it was clear that Jacobs-Jenkins is cerebral. Not in a condescending manner – but in a way that compels everyone who speaks with him to consider things in a new way. His “interrogation” of American theater’s contribution to the canon of global theater brought him to the conclusion of musical theater and family drama. “The scholars would say that it is the social unit from which all [American] drama rises,” Jacobs-Jenkins said of the latter during the talk that took place Friday afternoon in the auditorium of WashU’s Olin School of Business. His play “Appropriate,” the centerpiece of the Tennessee Williams Festival-St. Louis 11th Season, lends to his theory. Set in a dilapidated Arkansas plantation house, the Lafayette siblings must face a truth that subsequent generations have worked diligently to avoid – a legacy that is complicit with racial terror. The Tony Award-winning production continues through September 27 at COCA’s Berges Theatre. As one of the most influential playwrights of his generation, his achievements – including back-to-back Tony Awards for Appropriate in 2024 and Purpose in 2025 – were not at the center of their discussion. Jacobs-Jenkins’ creative process, his foray into television and the college education that led to his practice as a playwright and professor were at the core of the talk. “If anything, it made me really appreciate actors,” Jacobs-Jenkins said of his television work. “I had this realization that everything that happens in films and television is all about hoping that the actor comes out and does something interesting on camera. That’s it. There’s this village that kind of pops out on set. Everyone is this busy bee on set but the minute they call actors to set; everything gets really quiet.” He said that his television work further engaged him in the casting process, because he saw what can happen at the intersection of engaging material and a phenomenal actor. Stage adaptations from other mediums was another moment where Ezer’s picking of his brain unearthed another gem. “Adaptation is not to replace the original thing, but to send people back to the original thing with a new point of view,” Jacobs-Jenkins said. “When you adapt a novel into a play, you are not recreating a novel. Plays and novels ask for two different things from their audiences.” In the case of his play “An Octoroon,” an adaptation of the 1859 play “The Octoroon,” he felt an adaptation of a play into another play was a necessity. “‘An Octoroon’ came about because I really wanted to see the original,” Jacobs-Jenkins said. “I felt that in order to honor the original, I have to do it differently. We’re not the same audience as we were back then. I had to do the job of translating across centuries.” The play earned him the 2017 “Most Promising Playwright” distinction at the Critics Circle Theatre Awards. In the near decade since, Jacobs-Jenkins has gone on to win countless awards. He became the first Black playwright to win back-to-back Tony Awards and the first to win Best Play since August Wilson in 1987. He has won three Pulitzer Prize awards for drama in the past decade – and as Ezer put it “so many honors that if I were to read them there wouldn’t be time enough to have our conversation.” As with most visionaries, Jacobs-Jenkins had his eye on the future – including the promise he sees in regional theater. “New York theater has kind of turned into inside baseball – and turning movies into musicals that nobody wants,” Jacobs-Jenkins said. He said that Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis – and the organization’s current production – is a part of what’s right about regional theater. Tennessee Williams Festival-St. Louis made history in its own right by having “Appropriate” as the first work not written by its namesake – who spent his formative years in the St. Louis region. The production is also historic in that it is the first play by a Black playwright and has a Black director (Benny Sato Ambush) at the helm of the production. “’Appropriate’ looks at the notion of ownership – the play is all about ownership with the family,” Jacobs-Jenkins said. “The vision is mine on the page, but the magic is that these theaters use it to tell stories that somehow reflect their community and assess its values.”
The Tennessee Williams Festival-St. Louis production of “Appropriate” continues through September 27. For tickets and additional information, visit www.twstl.org.