Jeremy J. King
Jeremy is a Plays in Progress Mentor. His mentor interests: adaptation, genre (specifically anything with supernatural, fantasy, or horror elements), theatricality, story structure, script readability, scene-into-song, and LGBTQ+ narratives.
As a dramatist who creates both musical and non-musical works, I’m enamored by the expansiveness of our form and the various stories we can tell on stage. That said, theatre exists within systems of commerce, education, and entertainment, which shape the expectations of audiences, literary managers, agents, and producers. I help writers recognize those expectations and make their stories clear (and appealing) to folks making and consuming theatre. This can be achieved in macro ways by weaving satisfying structural and thematic threads throughout a piece, or in micro ways by making our work easy to read (especially for the tired eyes of gatekeepers who tend to, ahem, scan scripts). I help writers craft succinct, uncluttered pages that convey their intentions with style. As a writer specifically interested in adaptation, I think deeply about the principles of different mediums and how they work with our medium of theatre. I engage with writers about their connection to source materials and clarify their intentions for adapting work in a way that respects their vision, the original author, and the audiences who engage with it.
Jeremy King is a writer (and sometimes performer) passionate about speculative fiction, adaptation, and exploring the known and unknown histories of queer people. As a novelist, Jeremy released three young adult titles with Bold Strokes Books (In Stone, Night Creatures, and Dark Rites), which have been listed in Advocate’s “Top 10 Books for Young LGBT Folks and Anyone Who Wants to Understand Them,” recommended by the American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table, and nominated for the Rainbow Award in fantasy. His dramatic work includes the adaptations of works ranging from a musical of David B. Feinberg’s Eighty-Sixed (World Premiere in 2022 at Diversionary Theater) to a chamber musical inspired by Shelley’s Frankenstein to a queer investigation of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby to a contemporary exploration of Stoker’s Dracula and other works for the stage and screen. Jeremy is a 2018 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, an Affiliated Artist with Musical Theatre Factory, and a 2018 Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm. More info at jeremyjordanking.com
Jeremy is a writer (and sometimes performer) with a passion for speculative fiction and adaptation. As a novelist, Jeremy authored Immortal Testimonies, a young adult horror fantasy for Bold Strokes Books. At the time of its release in 2012, the series was among the first to feature queer protagonists and was listed in Advocate’s “Top 10 Books for Young LGBT Folks and Anyone Who Wants to Understand Them,” recommended by the American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table, and nominated for the Rainbow Award in fantasy. His dramatic work includes the adaptations of several notable works ranging from a musical of David B. Feinberg’s Eighty-Sixed (which received its World Premiere in 2022 at Diversionary Theater) to a queer investigation of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby to a contemporary exploration of Stoker’s Dracula to a reimagining of journals from a sixteenth-century crossing to the New World. Jeremy toes the line between literal and emotional adaptations of his favorite works and explores their queer characters or themes through magic realism, fantasy, and horror. He believes that genre is an excellent tool for making difficult themes and ideas accessible, especially to audiences who might otherwise not engage with them. Jeremy is a 2018 Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellow, Affiliated Artist with Musical Theatre Factory, and a 2018 Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm.