NEW YORK CITY: The Center for Fiction, a 200-year-old literary nonprofit that has created an immersive home for readers and writers in downtown Brooklyn, and Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre and the publisher of American Theatre, will co-present “Craft Talk: Annie Baker & Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.” Baker and Jacobs-Jenkins, who are close friends and accomplished playwrights, will dive into a conversation about realism and the fourth wall.
“Our first partner event with the Center for Fiction featured Jackie Sibblies Drury and Claudia Rankine in a powerful conversation about Black lives and the white gaze onstage,” said Teresa Eyring, executive director of TCG. “The rapt attention of the sold-out audience reaffirmed TCG Books’ belief that plays are literature and worthy of the same resources, respect, and critical attention as any other form. We have no doubt that Annie Baker and Branden Jacob-Jenkins will offer similar insights into the craft of theatre and its relationship to the world. ”
The event will take place at the Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, on Tues., Nov. 19, 2019 at 7 p.m. Admission is $10, and includes a $10 voucher to the nonprofit’s bookstore. Learn more and acquire your tickets here.
Baker’s plays include The Flick (Pulitzer Prize), John, The Aliens (Obie Award), Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award), and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Her plays have been produced at more than 200 theatres throughout the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwright Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library.
Jacobs-Jenkins’ plays include An Octoroon, Neighbors, Appropriate, and War. Gloria was named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He is a playwright-in-residence at Signature Theatre. He received the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for both An Octoroon and Appropriate, the 2015 Steinberg Playwrights Award, and the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize in 2016.
Since its founding in 1984, TCG Books has grown to become North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 17 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. Under the leadership of publisher Terry Nemeth, TCG Books has published the work of more than 235 playwrights and other theatre professionals in single volumes and anthologies and sold over three million books. TCG Books has a dual objective: to bring new literary voices to public attention and to cultivate individual relationships with its playwrights that nurture their careers. TCG is committed to keeping its playwrights in print.
The Center for Fiction is the only nonprofit literary organization in the U.S. solely dedicated to celebrating fiction. It is known for hosting special literary events, including innovative panels, lectures, and conversations. The Center for Fiction provides grants and holds workshops to support emerging writers, hosts book groups on classic and contemporary fiction, and provides free books and hosts events for NYC students K-12, as well as summer writing workshops for budding authors.
