Biography

John Jahnke is a New York based playwright/director whose most recent production, The Cenci, debuted in New York City in February 2008 at The Ohio Theatre. Antonin Artaud's only Theatre of Cruelty work, The Cenci was performed in its first American translation by Richard Sieburth of the French Department/NYU, created specifically for The Hotel Savant, and was created in part through a residency at The Watermill Center. Jahnke's original four-part theatre work, The Archery Contest, will premiere at PS122 in October 2009. Originally created as a serialized radio play, Part 1 of the work, produced in studio through Art Radio WPS1.org Web Radio Station and Part 2, recorded live in performance at PS122, are both available online. Studio versions of Part 3 and 4 will appear when the work opens at PS122, allowing the audience both a live and formal experience of the work.

He also staged the world premiere of Susan Sontag's never performed play A Parsifal, which debuted at PS122, New York City 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. Other original theatrical works include Funeral Games, The Public Theater (performance workshop), 2004; The Shady Maids of Haiti, Walkerspace; Mercurius, HERE, 2001; and Lola Montez in Bavaria..., HERE, 1999. In Los Angeles, under the auspices of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Jahnke created The Beasts of Luxury, 1996; Syphilis; The Monster of Dusseldorf or Paint Me, Paint Me Peter Kurten, 1993; as well as an art metal staging of Oscar Wilde's unfinished play La Sainte Courtesane, 1997. Jahnke was a member of Reza Abdoh's Dar a Luz company, appearing in Quotations From a Ruined City and Simon Boccannegra. 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. The Shady Maids of Haiti was published by New York Theatre Experience in 2004. He is a former opera and ballet student who received a B.F.A from the California Institute of the Arts' Fine Arts program.