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Since my first piece in 2005 I have created from this manifesto:
I will continue to make topical theatrical work about issues that are important to me, and I will task my audience to do more than sit in the dark and clap at the end. I consider myself an outsider artist. I don’t have an MFA. I didn’t “learn” that my first play wouldn’t get produced. Mine did, Disposable Men, 2005. I didn’t “learn” that one can’t sustain oneself on their artistic efforts. I do. |
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Reviews
The NY Times May 2017: “Immersive theater routinely makes audience members uncomfortable, but Mr. Scruggs is on a level all his own with 3/Fifths SupremacyLand”… “Visually and conceptually, “3/Fifths SupremacyLand” is extraordinary” Trapped in a Traveling Minstrel Show, Boston Bay State Banner November 2017: “Writer James Scruggs wrenches the audience out of their comfort zone and into the hilarious, haunting and tragic center of the lives of two black men, framed through a minstrel show. Right from the start the show shocks.” Disposable Men, 2005 NY Times stated “James Scruggs, who wrote and performs this collection of character pieces, has done something very difficult: he has written an angry play about racism that is also slyly funny. But be warned: the laughs will usually catch in your throat.” |
Recent Grants, Commissions, and Awards
April 2024 Awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship March 2024 Commissioned by HERE Arts Center to produce excerpts from his The American Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a webinar. It was Awarded a MAP Grant and was originally Commissioned (to be written) by The Perelman Arts Center. January 2023 Awarded the “Adding Justice Through The Arts Award from the NY State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers August 2022 Awarded a National Performance Network Grant to create OFF THE RECORD: Acts of Restorative Justice a theatrical work ACTUALLY expunging active criminal records via Expungement Clinics. March 2022 Commissioned by The Perelman Arts Center to write The American Truth and Reconciliation Commission. |