James Ijames Selected Works

Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes. What’s different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy. 

At a Virginia university established by a founding father, TJ is a university dean and Sally his work-study student. But TJ’s power has limits and Sally knows it. In TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever, playwright James Ijames hotwires a ride that leaves history’s burdens in the dust and off-roads a trail for the future.

A community is disrupted when a mysterious young man joins a church youth group. Wyatt, a self-proclaimed non-believer, arrives and miracles start to occur. Youth pastor Dave and his flock of young congregants must grapple with the meaning behind these remarkable events, even as they wrestle with their own issues of identity, sexuality and faith. Playwright James Ijames weaves together magical realism and rousing, gospel-inflected songs in this heartfelt exploration of what it means to live and love in a world where anything is possible.  

Kill Move Paradise takes the Elysium of Greek antiquity and flips the script. Set in a netherworld prepared for its newly deceased inhabitants, we follow Isa, Daz, Grif and Tiny as they try to make sense of the world they have been “untimely ripped” from and this new paradise they find themselves in. Inspired by recent events, Kill Move Paradise is an expressionistic buzz saw through the contemporary myth that “all lives matter” and a portrait of the slain, not as degenerates who deserved death, but as heroes who demand that we see them for who they are.

The Threshing Floor honors the life, ideas, and everlasting imprint of quintessential American writer James Baldwin (Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room). From 1920s Harlem to the bohemian utopia of Paris in the 40s, to the civil unrest of the 50s and 60s, numerous figures from Baldwin's life emerge in this one-man play featuring luminaries like Josephine Baker and Eldridge Cleaver, the author's own lovers, parents, and fellow civil rights activists. The play unfolds through an imagined encounter with the author and a fictional graduate student, who comes to interview Baldwin at his home abroad. Originally performed in repertory with Jay Presson Allen's Tru, under the title Capote/Baldwin.

The recently-widowed “Mother of America” lies helpless in her Mount Vernon bed, ravaged by illness and cared for by the very slaves that are free the moment she dies. The fever dream of terrifying theatricality that follows investigates everything from Martha Washington’s family to her historical legacy.

Upon hearing about the sudden death of his mother, Monarch returns to his home in Philadelphia to plan her funeral. Along the way Monarch falls in love, discovers the truth about his absent father and learns that his past is also the making of his present. This magical journey through space and time takes us literally from Philadelphia to the moon and back.

Gus wants to be a famous artist. His desire to be acquired by a major contemporary art museum drives him to hire an actress to present his work as her own in order to meet the museum’s demand for “new perspectives.” This hilarious and thought-provoking premiere examines race, gender, sexuality, and art.