For his debut season as a playwright, Jeremy O. Harris contended with ideas about race, class, history, and relationships through the production of his two Off-Broadway plays “Slave Play” and “Daddy”, which saw newcomer Ronald Peet star opposite Hari Nef and Tommy Dorfman. The critically-lauded projects, both of which source inspiration in oft-ignored histories of black and queer theatre, saw him get coverage in countless major publications, all the while completing his course work as a full-time student at the Yale School of Drama. They also add Harris to a growing legion of creators, depicting the stories and experiences of those that have long been othered in the mainstream.
“I’m feeling incredibly proud of the fact that I didn’t go mad over the last nine months,” the Martinsville, Virginia-native – who also recently teamed up with designer Telfar – says. “My brain felt on the brink of exploding from stress multiple times, and yet I made it through intact and with a lot of joy.” And though he hopes to get to a vacation soon, with two more productions on the way, and the premiere of Zola, a film he co-wrote with Janicza Bravo based on a viral twitter thread about a stripper who almost got tricked into a human trafficking ring, it doesn’t seem like that’s anywhere in the near future.
Mikelle Street