Signature Theatre Extends THE COMEUPPANCE Through July 9

Signature Theatre will extend the world premiere production of MacArthur Fellow Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' The Comeuppance by two weeks. Concluding Jacobs-Jenkins' Premiere Residency—and Signature's 2022-2023 season of personal and profound works from its Resident writers—The Comeuppance, which began performances May 16, now runs through July 9. (June 25 was initially set as the closing date).

A self-proclaimed “Multi-Ethnic Reject Group” reconvenes for the first time in years to pregame for their twentieth high school reunion. Over alcohol and other such substances, they try to reconnect who they once were with who they've each become.

 

The Comeuppance marks the culmination of Jacobs-Jenkins' prolific decade as a Signature Premiere Resident playwright. As a five-star review in The Stage by Lane Williamson wrote put it, “The Comeuppance completes Jacobs-Jenkins' residency at Signature and is his third masterpiece to play its stages…a biting, tragic look at the choices we make over time and how they affect the people we become." Previously, Signature presented the world premiere of Everybody (2017, Pulitzer Prize finalist), Jacobs-Jenkins' bold, contemporary take with “considerable intellect…and considerable heart” (The New Yorker), on the 15th-century The Somonyng of Everyman; and the New York premiere of Appropriate, a “remarkable and devious play…a ghost story, in the most profound sense” (The New York Times) in 2014 (Obie Award winner).

In The Comeuppance, America's stratified realities have geographically and socially separated people whose lives were once tightly intertwined: one is now the wife of a former police officer; one is an overworked doctor; one is a veteran marine; one has spent a good part of her adulthood caring for her ailing grandmother; one is an artist and expat. None is particularly content. Embodying these disparate characters, whose common ground exists only in memory, is an ensemble (Bradford, Eberhardt, Flood, Moreno, and Tyo) Jacobs-Jenkins describes as “theater animals and some of my favorite actors ever.” The creative team includes Arnulfo Maldonado (Set Design), Jennifer Moeller (Costume Design), Miriam Kelleher (Costume Design), Amith Chandrashaker (Lighting Design), Palmer Hefferan (Sound Design), Skylar Fox (Magic Designer), Ann C. James (Intimacy Coordinator), Amanda Nita Luke-Sayed (Production Stage Manager), Elizabeth Emanuel (Assistant Stage Manager), Kat Yen (Associate Director), and Caparelliotis Casting (Casting).

Jacobs-Jenkins, who approached the rehearsal process as an opportunity to continue shaping the play, said, “For me, Signature has always been about putting the playwright's specific needs at the center of a production. It is a place where I get to do more than deliver a script: I get to have a rehearsal process that is fulfilling and stimulating and full of discovery. For this play, I wanted a room where  it felt like anything could happen. And Eric Ting felt exactly like the right visionary and collaborator.”

Jacobs-Jenkins continued, “I started my residency at Signature ten years ago. I was barely out of graduate school and if you'd come up to me and described my life now to me then, I'd probably file for a restraining order. I'd think you were crazy. But this is a testament to the unrivaled freedom, confidence, security, and inspiration this institution has brought into my life. This is the culmination of what has been a very significant gift of time, space, and encouragement.”

Signature Theatre Artistic Director Paige Evans said, “The end of Branden's residency is bittersweet. We at Signature have been honored to support and engage with Branden's bold and fearless imagination over these years and to have his always surprising and profound work on our stages. The Comeuppance is a funny and slyly dark play about five people who remind each other of the schism of time's passage. It feels like the perfect end of an incredible decade of artistry for Branden.”