Explore Appropriate
Maiya Koloski & Luis Del Valle III as Cassidy & Rhys in Appropriate.. Photo by Katie Day.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate
The plot of every American dysfunctional (white) family drama is thrown into one big pressure cooker in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, presented by SPACE Gallery and Mad Horse Theatre Company, February 15th through March 1st, 2020.
In Appropriate, the estranged members of the Lafayette clan have descended upon their crumbling Arkansas homestead to settle the accounts of the newly dead patriarch. After a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father’s possessions, his three adult children are faced with a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.
“Branden Jacobs-Jenkins ear for dialogue is extraordinary,” reflected Christopher Price, Mad Horse’s director for this production. “The words spoken show the latent anger, the affection, the loathsomeness, the fear, and the vulnerability that make these characters impossible not to identify with and remember.”
Jacobs-Jenkins is one of the most acclaimed and visionary minds at work in the theater today. With recent works including An Octoroon and Everybody, he has reimagined classics — from Greek myths to Americana strongholds — to explore how these archetypes can speak to our own complicated moment in history. As Jacobs-Jenkins remarked in an interview with The Guardian in 2016, “I think theatre is about checking in on some controversial ideas among people and seeing where we all square in our relationship to those ideas and to each other.”
With Appropriate, the larger legacy of America’s racial history simmers underneath the onstage drama about one troubled white family’s heritage. “As we continue to explore the role of race in Maine,” said SPACE Executive Director, Kelsey Halliday Johnson, “we’re proud to be presenting a work that critically examines whiteness through the lens of one of our nation’s most celebrated Black contemporaries.”
Luis Del Valle III, Christine Marshall, Janice Gardner & Burke Brimmer. Photo by Katie Day
Cast & Crew
Cast
Toni: Christine Marshall*
Rhys: Luis Del Valle III
Bo: Burke Brimmer*
Rachael: Janice Gardner*
Cassidy: Maiya Koloski
Ainsley: Oliver Killeen
Franz: Brent Askari*
River: Marie Stewart Harmon*
Crew
Director: Christopher Price*
Production Manager: Nick Schroeder*
Stage Manager: Lauren Stockless
Scenic Designer: Christopher Price*
Lighting Designer: Corey Anderson*
Prop Designer: Stacey Koloski*
Costume Designer: Savannah Irish
Sound Designer: Nat Baldwin
Racial Equity Consultant: Keita Whitten
* Mad Horse Company Members
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
About Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' plays include Neighbors (The Public Theater), Appropriate (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Victory Gardens Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Signature Theatre in New York, Spring 2014), An Octoroon (Soho Rep, Spring 2014), and War. He is currently a Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre and a Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at The Juilliard School. Additionally, his work has been or will be seen at the Vineyard Theatre, The Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles, Company One in Boston, and the HighTide Festival in the United Kingdom. He has taught at New York University and Queens University of Charlotte, and his honors include a Paula Vogel Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. He holds an M.A. in Performance Studies.