Jacob Juntunen

Hath Taken Away

Jacob Juntunen heads the Playwriting MFA at SIU (Southern Illinois University). His play Hath Taken Away (O’Neill Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist; Source Festival Finalist) was read at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Chicago Dramatists, and Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, and had a workshop production at Contraband Theatre. His play In the Shadow of his Language (Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Contest Finalist; O’Neill Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist; Princess Grace Fellowship Semi-Finalist; AACT finalist) was read at Chicago Dramatists, the Alliance Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and in Chicago’s DCase “In the Works” series. Other plays include Joan’s Laughter, Under America, and Saddam’s Lions (published in Plays for Two). Jacob’s play See Him? was in the Belarusian Dream Theater: eighteen theaters in thirteen countries producing plays to raise awareness about human rights violations in Belarus. He also authored the book Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical Palatable (Routledge in 2016).