AUDIO: WAR's Branden Jacobs-Jenkins On The Instability Of Being An Off-Broadway Playwright

Thirty-one year old playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has been shocking and surprising audiences since his 2010 Off-Broadway debut, the Public Theater's production of NEIGHBORS. He followed with co-Obie-winners APPROPRIATE and AN OCTOROON and Pulitzer finalist GLORIA. His new play at LCT3/Lincoln Center, WAR is loaded with ideas, surprises and some of the sharpest writing around.

But while recognized as one of the country's finest emerging playwrights, his work has never come close to Broadway and, as he mentions in an interview with WNYC, much of his living is made by juggling three teaching jobs.

New York may be the country's theatre center, but it's also a very expensive city to live in; not an ideal situation for nurturing artists. And while many promising writers have ventured into television and film for financial stability, Jacobs-Jenkins prefers working in theatre, where the playwright is in control.

Austin Durant, Reggie Gowland, Chris Myers,Rachel Nicks, Michele Shay, Lance Coadie Williams, and Charlayne Woodard star in the LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater production of WAR by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz.WAR is now in previews, and officially opened yesterday, June 6, running for six weeks only through Sunday, July 3 at the Claire Tow Theater.

In WAR, tensions escalate between Tate (to be played by Chris Myers) and Joanne (to be played by Rachel Nicks) after their mother (to be played by Charlayne Woodard) has a stroke. As they attack each other in their mother's hospital room, they are ambushed by two strangers who make a shocking claim about their grandfather during WWII. With bold theatricality and disarming humor,WAR follows a fractured family as its members navigate the landmines of the past and try to broker peace with each other - and themselves - in the present.