Few playwrights have the potential to become household names. Jacobs-Jenkins is one of them. His cerebral deconstructions of race and American history—including in the 2023 Broadway run of Appropriate and Purpose—have won him a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two Tonys before age 45.
What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?
During a moment of extreme writer’s block and probably depression, I would watch the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire every single day. This went on for an entire winter, and I am not exaggerating. Tennessee Williams’s language is always like a sauna for me—I feel so purified and energized and never want to leave. Also, what’s captured of Marlon Brando on the screen in that film is just wild.
When you were little, what were you known for?
I’m not sure what counts as “little,” but for about five years of my life, I was a spelling bee kid, which means I spent a lot of time reading literal dictionaries cover-to-cover when I should have been, I don’t know, learning algebra. Oddly enough, it was something no one but myself had pressured me to do. I’d completely gotten into it all on my own, and I guess it was the origins of my weird relationship with language. I’m also pretty sure I am the first kid to “ghost write” a word on my hand before I spelled it. I remember doing it at the 1998 National Spelling Bee and people losing their shit.
What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?
More stories about actual people and actual human relationships and the feeling of being alive. More engagement with the world we all share and bitch about in conversation every day but never see reflected back to us meaningfully through entertainment. More genuine weirdness. More jokes. Less theater about people making theater. Less theater that is love letters to theater. Less theater that assumes audiences care about it. Less inside baseball in general.
What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?
Um, probably racism?
Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.
I haven’t figured out if this is something to be embarrassed about or not but I have a feeling that a lot of my thinking about story and form has been shaped by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I still find myself marveling over its attempts at radical inclusiveness in a genre space but also at some of those famous one-off “concept episodes” and the vastly delightful feelings of “What the fuck?!!?!” those formal games engendered in me as a viewer. Needless to say, I Saw the TV Glow really hit for me in that regard.
What keeps you up at night?
Right now, it’s a 5-year-old who climbs into bed with my husband and I every morning circa 2 a.m. and whose limbs have no respect for my space, face, or sleep.
What are you looking forward to this year?
I’m still on a sabbatical from teaching and I have no productions lined up this season, so I’m honestly just looking forward to reading things I’ve been wanting to read for years now: Russian novels, Greek epics, memoirs about dads, economic histories, all of it.
What question do you ask yourself most often while you’re making work?
Would I want to watch this?
Where do you feel most at home?
Rehearsals are my happy place. I just seem to never be in a better mood than when I have a bunch of incredible talent to play around with all day in some random room with sprung floors and mirrors. It’s the best part of my job.
Who do you call the most?
The playwright Joshua Harmon and I were in the same class at Juilliard, and it was literally on the first day that our teacher, the legendary Marsha Norman, made the observation that no one in the process of making theater is lonelier than the playwright. She said the only cure to this was to find a “playwriting buddy” and commit to supporting each other unconditionally. For whatever reason, knowing literally nothing about each other, we turned to each other and were like “You’re it!” And we’ve spoken with each other on the phone every day now for over a decade.
What would you be doing if you weren’t working in your field?
I’d honestly probably be some sort of lawyer, therapist, or clerical figure. I still fantasize often about dropping everything and going to law school or therapy school or divinity school, all of which seem, oddly, very fun to me. My job, at its best, can sometimes feel like all three.
To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.
in your life?
