Jacob Juntunen is having a busy summer! His play “Hath Taken Away” was recently read at Chicago Dramatists as well as the Last Frontier Theater Conference and now he has a short play called “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be” being performed at City Theater of Independence in Kansas City Missouri July 9th through the 12! Congrats Jacob! Check it out if you’re in the area(The title is cool!!)
More Details
Dates for show: July 9th,10th,11th at 8pm
July 12th at 2pm
Address: City Theatre of Independence Banquet
Sermon Center
201 N. Dodgion
Independence, MO 64050
More about Jacob
Jacob Juntunen is a playwright and theatre scholar whose work focuses on people who struggle against society’s boundaries.
His playwriting stems from a mix of scholarship and social responsibility. Therefore, his playwriting and academic writing are a constant symbiosis. Both focus on understanding the political function of theatre, and this focus is demonstrated in his plays, which, overall, are meant for those “who want to leave the theatre changed and moved,” as one Chicago critic described. He recently wrote See Him? to participate in the Belarusian Dream Theater, a consortium of 18 theaters in 13 countries simultaneously producing plays to raise awareness about human rights violations in Belarus. His latest play, Hath Taken Away, was an O’Neill Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist, and has had readings at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference (Valdez, AK) and as part of the Saturday Series at Chicago Dramatists. His previous full-length play, In The Shadow Of his Language, was an Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Contest Finalist; an O’Neill Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist; an AACT New Play Contest Finalist; and a Princess Grace Fellowship Semi-Finalist. It was read at Chicago Dramatists, as part of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs “In the Works” series, at the Alliance Theatre, and workshopped off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. His play Saddam’s Lions—published in Plays for Two (Vintage)—examines the disquieting memories of an African-American female Iraq War veteran and her struggles to come to terms with war-time trauma. Jacob based this play on interviews with a veteran. This process combined his desire for politically relevant work, his dedication to diverse casting opportunities, and his scholarship about the politics of performance. He hopes to inspire in students a similar yearning for intellectual curiosity, social activism, collaboration, and playwriting.
