Thu 3/12-Sat 4/4
East Coast-based playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is red-hot right now: his play Purpose, his first to be staged on Broadway, won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; two of his earlier plays were finalists in 2016 and 2018. He initially made a splash with his 2014 off-Broadway show An Octoroon. He’s been a MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow and won a Fulbright Award.
Before Purpose, he wrote The Comeuppance, which was performed off Broadway in 2023. It has a Big Chill sort of premise: it revolves around five high school classmates reassembling before their 20th reunion and, with tongues loosened by pot and alcohol, start to share how their lives have gone, reflecting on the passage of time, aging and death. “But amid the flow of reminiscing, an otherworldly presence forces these friends to face the past head-on,” we’re told.
The play is described as a “comedy” by Dobama Theatre which will present its regional premiere, directed by Nina Domingue. Hopefully that’s accurate because it’s 130 minutes (two+ hours) with no intermission, so hopefully there’s levity to relieve the intension. The cast includes Ananias J. Dixon, Mariah Burks, Roxana Bell, Rachel Lee Kolis and Ricky Ortega as the former classmates.
The Comeuppance runs through Saturday April 4. Get tickets here.