Special Commendation 2020-21

Ife Olujobi

Play: Jordans

 Ife Olujobi

Synopsis: In a workplace where appearance is everything, a long-suffering receptionist finds herself in personal, professional, and psychic jeopardy when her ruthless boss hires a hip new employee in order to improve the company’s image and “culture.” Suddenly, the two young, black, ambitious social climbers are forced together and torn apart by their race, racism, and otherworldly circumstance. Jordans is a story of identity mistaken, power subverted, and rage unleashed.

 

Cast Breakdown: 4M, 4W (all roles open to trans/non-binary actors, especially the lead role)

 

Set/Costume Requirements: An event space/rental studio/production facility in the "trendy" part of Brooklyn or a similar part of a similar urban center. The kind of place that hosts photo and video shoots, parties, launches, and other fashionable events. The kind of place where nothing is fixed and anything can happen for a price.

 

Agent: Sam Barickman at CAA, sam.barickman@caa.com

 

Instagram: @ifeolujobi

 

Bio: Ife Olujobi (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based Nigerian American playwright, screenwriter, and editor from Columbia, Maryland. She is a 2020-22 Resident Artist at Ars Nova, a member of the Obie-winning Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre, a 2019-20 New Voices Fellow at The Lark, an alumnus of both the 2018-19 Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater and the 2020 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, an inaugural Project Number One artist-in-residence at Soho Rep, and the recipient of a 2020 Sloan Foundation commission from Manhattan Theatre Club. Their play Jordans won a special commendation from the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and their plays include Smoke, MARKETPLACE, Color Girls and others. Their work has been seen at The Public, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Bishop Arts Theater Center, and more. She also conceived and edited a book of interviews with theater artists during the pandemic called No Play, she is the founder and editor of Townies zine, managing editor of The Supplements at Soho Rep, and a former assistant editor at the Criterion Collection. They received their BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2016.