James Ijames

James Ijames, a Philadelphia-based playwright and performer, received a 2017 Whiting Award and the 2019 Kesselring Prize for Kill Move Paradise. He is also a 2011 Independence Foundation Fellow, a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrance McNally New Play Award for WHITE, and the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington. His plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theater Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon, Wilma Theatre (Philadelphia), The National Black Theatre (NYC), Ally Theatre (Washington, D.C.), Definition Theatre (Chicago), Shotgun Players (Berkeley, CA) and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwright’s Horizon, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theater, The Gulfshore Playhouse, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre, The National Black Theatre and Victory Gardens. Ijames has appeared regionally in productions at The Arden Theatre Company, The Philadelphia Theatre Company, InterAct Theatre Company, The Wilma Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Mauckingbird Theatre Company, and People’s Light and Theatre. He is the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist recipient, and has also won two Barrymores for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play for Superior Donuts and Angels in America and one Barrymore for Outstanding Direction of a Play for The Brothers Size with Simpatico Theatre Company. Ijames is a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective. He received a BA degree in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, and an MFA degree in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, Penn. James is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and resides in South Philadelphia.

(Headshot photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan)