Soho Rep's 2023 Gala Will Honor Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

For its 2023 Spring Fête, Soho Rep will honor Obie winner, MacArthur Fellow, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Soho Rep board member Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, in a performance-packed evening directed by Raja Feather Kelly. The organization celebrates Jacobs-Jenkins' extraordinary impact within the organization and in the entire theater community-as an artist, teacher, and advocate for fellow playwrights. The event will take place on May 1 at 6pm at City Winery (25 11th Avenue).

Soho Rep produced the world premiere of Jacobs-Jenkins' "tremendously exciting...moving and chilling and surprising" (Time Out New York) An Octoroon, directed by Sarah Benson, in 2014. The production won two Obie Awards and transferred to Theatre for A New Audience's 299-seat theater before being seen by people around the world, from The National Theatre in London to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California. Jacobs-Jenkins has become one of the most produced playwrights in the country-and the creator of the Hulu series Kindred, adapted from Octavia E. Butler's groundbreaking novel. Jacobs-Jenkins is also an inspiring teacher, and introduced Soho Rep to former student Mara Vélez Meléndez, who made her Off-Broadway debut with Soho Rep's production of Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members. As Vice-President of the Dramatists Guild Council, Jacobs-Jenkins is an influential advocate for other writers.

Jacobs-Jenkins says, "I have been proud to call this place an artistic home since 2008, when I participated in its Writer Director Lab, an incredible incubator program. You probably would not have met me without Soho Rep-a place that has given many artists their first meaningful opportunity, including writers such as Aleshea Harris, Melissa James Gibson, Lucas Hnath, and, of course, Jackie Sibblies Drury, who won a Pulitzer for her play Fairview in 2019. I'm now on their Board because I want to ensure that more artists like me get supported at critical moments of their lives and their artistic journeys and the theater ecosystem is maintained."

Against City Winery's backdrop of the Hudson River, Soho Rep's 2023 Spring Fête includes dinner and performances from legendary writer/performer and Soho Rep Project Number One artist and Board member Carmelita Tropicana and Tony-nominated actress Gabby Beans (The Skin of Our Teeth, Marys Seacole). A number of original cast members from An Octoroon will perform music from the production, composed by César Alvarez: Jocelyn Bioh (In the Blood, Everybody), Amber Gray (Hadestown, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), Ben Horner (Thunderbodies, The Red Letter Plays: f-ing A), Austin Smith (Hamilton, Kindred), Zoë Winters (Succession, Heroes of the Fourth Turning), Mary Wiseman (At the Wedding, Star Trek: Discovery), and Danny Wolohan (Camelot, To Kill a Mockingbird). An Octoroon musician Lester St. Louis will also participate.

The evening's many components are brought together by the dynamic vision of its director, Raja Feather Kelly. A friend and collaborator of Jacobs-Jenkins who choreographed the 2019 Yale Repertory production of the playwright's Girls, Kelly has also been a vital and visionary artistic presence at Soho Rep, having choreographed the Benson-directed world premiere production of Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview. Kelly, who also choreographed Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop and White Girl in Danger, is a Soho Rep commissioned artist within their Studio program.

The Spring Fête creative team also includes Cheo Bourne (Assistant Director), Deb O (Scenic Designer), Riva Fairhall (Lighting Designer), and Amanda Spooner (Stage Manager).

Funds raised at the Springe Fête will help Soho Rep give writers high-caliber productions, keep ticket prices affordable, and prioritize living wages for every artist working with the organization. They will also help the organization in a moment of transition, as two of its three directors-Sarah Benson and Meropi Peponides -prepare to step down at the end of the current season, after 15 and 8 years, respectively, with the theater. Benson and Peponides depart at a time of artistic vibrancy and organizational strength for Soho Rep, having accomplished a long series of dramatic successes together. Two new directors, who will join Cynthia Flowers in leading the organization, will be announced soon.

About Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a creator, showrunner, writer, and executive producer-a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama. He recently made his striking TV debut as creator of FX's drama series Kindred, which premiered December 13 on Hulu.

Previously in television, Branden was a consulting producer on HBO's Emmy- and Peabody- winning Watchmen, as well as Prime Video's sci-fi western, Outer Range.

Best known for his theater work and considered one of the most important American Playwrights working today, Jacobs-Jenkins consistently pushes the boundaries of the artform through his groundbreaking plays including An Octoroon, Girls, Gloria, Appropriate, and Everybody. Among countless honors for his work, he is the winner of an Obie Award, the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, a 2020 Guggenheim fellowship, a 2020 USA Artists fellowship, the Charles Wintour Award, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, and the Tennessee Williams Award. His ongoing work as a Residency Five playwright with the Signature Theatre culminates with the world premiere of his newest play this coming spring (May 16-June 25, 2023).

He currently serves as Vice President of the Dramatists Guild council and sits on the boards of Soho Rep, Park Avenue Armory, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Dramatists Guild Foundation. This fall, he joined the faculty of Yale University as Professor of Practice.

Born in Washington, DC, Jacobs-Jenkins is a graduate of Princeton, NYU, and Julliard.

About Raja Feather Kelly

Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the feath3r theory (TF3T)-a Brooklyn-based dance-theatre-media company that he founded in 2009. Over the past decade, he has created 18 evening-length works with the feath3r theory to critical acclaim, most recently WEDNESDAY (New York Live Arts), and the UGLY trilogy (Bushwick Starr, New York Live Arts, and ImPulsTanz/Chelsea Factory). TF3T's forthcoming work, The Absolute Future, will premiere in 2024.

His choreography can currently be seen in White Girl in Danger at the Second Stage Kiser Theater (2023), written by Michael R. Jackson and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. He choreographed the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon) and Fairview (Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, TFANA)-both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He was hailed by The New York Times as the choreographer who "can make your play move" for his extensive work Off-Broadway. Recent credits include Bunny Bunny (UC San Diego-the first production outside of TF3T for which he was the writer, director, and choreographer), -We're Gonna Die (Second Stage Theater-his directorial debut), SUFFS (The Public Theater), and Lempicka (La Jolla Playhouse). Frequent collaborators include Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Michael R. Jackson. Other theatre credits include choreography for Skittles Commercial: The Musical (Town Hall), The Chronicles of Cardigan and Khente (Soho Rep), If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons), The Good Swimmer (BAM), and The Listeners (Oslo Opera). He recently choreographed Scenes for an Ending in collaboration with musician Emily Weeks for the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

He has received dozens of awards, fellowships and honors including a Princeton Arts Fellowship (2023-2025), a Mellon Foundation grant (2021), an Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award honor for choreography for A Strange Loop (2020), an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019-2021), a Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts (2019-2020), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019-2021), a New York Dance Performance Bessie Award (2009), a Creative Capital Award (2019), three Princess Grace Awards (2017-2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), a Creator-in-Residence at Kickstarter (2018), and a Choreography Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (2017), a Bessie Schonberg Fellowship at The Yard (2017), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), an ImPulsTanz Festival DanceWEB Scholarship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship (2016). He was featured on the cover of the February 2020 issue of Dance Magazine.

Kelly has performed with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, David Dorfman Dance, Kyle Abraham|Abraham.In.Motion, and zoe | juniper. He has also managed a number of dance companies: Race Dance, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, zoe | juniper, and Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group.

Kelly has held teaching positions at universities nationwide, including Yale, Princeton, The Juilliard School, and New York University, among others. He is a Quinn Martin directing fellow at the University of California San Diego.

He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College. He is currently earning a Boston Psychoanalytic Society & Institute certificate as an Ecker Fellow in Psychoanalysis and the Creative Arts.

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