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JOHN JAHNKE

  
Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    Abrams Artists Agency  

John Jahnke is a New York based playwright/director whose most recent production, the world premiere of Susan Sontag's never-performed play a Parsifal, debuted at PS122 in March 2006. the poetic yet terse deconstruction of the legendary knight's path to transcendence was developed through Chashama's aRea Space Grant Program and a workshop at the Public Theater. His original theatrical works include Funeral Games, the Public Theater (performance workshop), 2004 - a play with music and movement based on the equivocal relationship between achilles and his beloved Patroclus in Homer's the Iliad; the Shady Maids of Haiti, Walkerspace, 2002 - a surreal, tableau-laden exploration concerning the infamous and violent Haitian slave rebellion of 1804; Mercurius, HeRe, 2001 - a Greek tragi-comedy cum Guignol, inspired by the alchemical writings of CG Jung; and Lola Montez in BavariA. . ., HeRe, 1999  a pastorale inspired by the infamous nineteenth century dancer of the title and her relationship with King Ludwig I and a pair of satyrs. all works premiered in New York City and were mounted through his company, the Hotel Savant. Currently in development are another original script, the archery Contest, an abstract sex comedy of secular insurgence recorded as a radio play for art Radio/PS1, as well as a revisionist staging of the notorious the Cenci, antonin artaud's only Theater of Cruelty work, being presented in its first American translation by Richard Sieburth of the French Institute/NYU. the Cenci will debut in New York City in February 2008 at the Ohio Theatre, and is being developed through the support of Chashama as well as a residency at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center. In Los Angeles, under the auspices of Los Angeles Contemporary exhibitions, Jahnke created the Beasts of Luxury, 1996 - a traveling carnival presenting the startling parallels in the strange and disturbing case histories of Gilles de Rais and Countess erzsebet Bathory; Syphilis, 1994 - Imagining a marriage between Lautreamont, author of the 1868 pre-surrealist nightmare of Maldoror, and the tragic hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin; the Monster of Dusseldorf or Paint Me, Paint Me Peter Kurten, 1993 - Involving an unbalanced ballerina's obsession with a painter she believes to be the historical maniac of the title; and the Deranged Cousins, 1990 - Concerning the demise of three hedonist cousins sequestered in the swamps of the south. as well as his original works, Jahnke has also mounted productions of Jean anouilh's antigone, in which antigone vented her frustrations through Chopin on the piano, and Oscar Wilde's unfinished La Sainte Courtesane, in which the holy whore of the title roamed the valleys of thebaid with a rock n' roll band. Jahnke was also a member of Reza abdoh's Dar a Luz company, appearing in Quotations From a Ruined City in Los Angeles, New York, and much of Europe, as well as his production of Verdi's Simon BoccAnnegra at the Long Beach City OperA. He has appeared alongside many of the more notorious figures that the world of performance has to offer, including ann Magnuson, John Fleck, and Ron athey. He has also directed a number of short films and videos, including His Red Snow White apple Lips, Cakehole Howl and Sex, Death and Rebirth in July, which have screened at numerous festivals throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. New York Theatre experience recently published the Shady Maids of Haiti, and his impending production of Funeral Games, which debuted in workshop form at the Public Theater in the summer of 2004, will premiere in New York City in 2008. In addition to his stage work Jahnke is developing a radio play entitled the Sleep of endymion with sound designer Kristin Worrall. John Jahnke is a former opera and ballet student who received a B.F.a from the California Institute of the Arts' Fine Arts program.

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below is a list of John Jahnke's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

        Archery Contest, The         Beasts Of Luxury, The         Funeral Games         Lola Montez In Bavaria         Men Go Down         Mercurius         Shady Maids Of Haiti, The