Playwright

James
Ijames

(he/him)

James Ijames is a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, a director, and educator. James’ plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theatre Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon, Wilma Theatre, Theatre Exile, Azuka Theatre (Philadelphia, PA); National Black Theatre, JACK, The Public Theater (NYC); Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre, Definition Theatre, TimeLine Theatre (Chicago, IL); Shotgun Players (Berkeley, CA); and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theatre, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre, and Victory Gardens Theater. James is the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist recipient, and recipient of two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction of a Play for The Brothers Size with Simpatico Theatre and Gem of the Ocean with Arden Theatre Company. James is a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrance McNally New Play Award for White, the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington, a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award, a 2019 Kesselring Prize for Kill Move Paradise, a 2020 and 2022 Steinberg Prize and the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama recipient. James was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective. He received a B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and an M.F.A. in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. James an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. He resides in South Philadelphia.