South Coast Repertory and Playwrights Horizons have awarded the first Pinnacle Commission to playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Created in 2019 as part of South Coast Repertory's The Lab@SCR play development program, the $60,000 award recognizes and supports established American playwrights.
"I'm so honored to be the first recipient of this commission. This is an unheard-of opportunity for any dramatist and I just look forward to working with these two legendary institutions of new American playwriting,” said Jacobs-Jenkins in a statement.
Jacobs-Jenkins recently made his debut at South Coast Repertory with Appropriate, which shared winning the 2014 Obie Award for Best American New Play with Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon.
Jacobs-Jenkins Gloria and Everybody were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, respectively. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, the playwright currently teaches at Yale University and has previously taught at University ofTexas, Hunter College, Juilliard, Princeton, and NYU.