Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who The New York Times calls “one of this country’s most original and illuminating writers,” is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose other credits include Girls (Yale Rep), War (world premiere, Yale Rep; LCT3), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre; Echo Theater Company in L.A.; Pulitzer Prize finalist), Appropriate (Signature Theatre; Mark Taper Forum; OBIE Award), An Octoroon (Soho Rep.; Fountain Theatre in L.A.; OBIE Award), and Neighbors (The Public Theater; Matrix Theatre Company in L.A.). A Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre, his most recent honors include the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard, a London Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwriting, a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly but unofficially known as the “Genius Grant”), the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Steinberg Playwriting Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. Jacobs-Jenkins has taught at NYU, Juilliard, Hunter College, and the University of Texas-Austin, and he recently joined the faculty at Yale University.