Biography
John Jahnke is a New York based playwright/director whose most recent original work, Men Go Down – Part 3: Black Recollections, created in part through residencies at The Park Avenue Armory, Abrons Art Center and The MacDowell Colony, premiered at 3LD Art and Technology Center in 2011 as part of Performance Space 122’s COIL Festival. It utilizes the construction of a Greek drama and the sensibility of a classic Fairy Tale to examine the ramifications of antique guilt on the modern conscience. Written in a fragmented form of blank verse, the Men Go Down trilogy is an attempt to create a uniquely poetic and contemporary language and then apply it to a historically elliptical subject matter. The complete work, including Part 1: Alas, The Nymphs, and Part 2: The Sleep of Endymion, will premiere in 2014.
Another original work, The Archery Contest, premiered at Performance Space 122, New York City in October 2009. The highly stylized work was mounted through his company, Hotel Savant, for which he serves as Artistic Director. Shooting straight into the heart of marriage in America, The Archery Contest is a glittering and scathing indictment of outmoded rules, regulations and church rituals, as pertinent to the issue of romantic codification. The Archery Contest was initially developed as a serialized radio play for Art International Radio and was developed at Performance Space 122 and 3LD Art and Technology Center.
Other works include Artaud’s The Cenci, which debuted in New York City in 2008 at The Ohio Theatre. The Cenci was performed in its first American translation by Richard Sieburth, created specifically for Hotel Savant. It was created in residence at The Watermill Center and The MacDowell Colony (Henry Hewes Design Awards Nomination: Notable Effects). Jahnke also staged the world premiere of Susan Sontag’s A Parsifal, after he discovered the text in a thrift store. It debuted at Performance Space 122 in 2006 and was developed through Chashama and a workshop at The Public Theater.
Other original works include Funeral Games, which will have its official premiere at La Mama in 2013, and was initially created in performance workshop at The Public Theater in 2004; The Shady Maids of Haiti, Walkerspace, 2002 (published in 2004); Mercurius, HERE, 2001; and Lola Montez in Bavaria..., HERE, 1999 (published in 2011). In Los Angeles, under the auspices of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Jahnke and his first company, Deranged Cousins, created The Beasts of Luxury, 1995; Syphilis, 1994; The Monster of Dusseldorf or Paint Me, Paint Me Peter Kurten, 1993; as well as a staging of Oscar Wilde’s unfinished play La Sainte Courtesane, 1996.
Jahnke was a member of Reza Abdoh’s Dar a Luz, appearing in Quotations From a Ruined City and Simon Boccannegra. He has also directed a number of short films, including His Red Snow White Apple Lips and Sex, Death and Rebirth in July, which have screened throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe.
He has developed work at The Watermill Center, The MacDowell Colony, Chashama, The Park Avenue Armory, LMCC, The Orchard Project, Abrons Art Center, Art International Radio and 3LD Art and Technology Center. Henry Hewes Design Awards Nominations: The Cenci, ‘Notable Effects/Production Design’; The Archery Contest, ‘Set Design’. He is a former opera and ballet student who received a B.F.A from the California Institute of the Arts’ Fine Arts program. He is represented by Abrams Artists.