Jocelyn Bioh — Tony-nominated Ghanaian-American writer and performer — was a 2017–2018 Tow Playwright-in-Residence at MCC Theatre. In a conversation with Eileen Wiseman, Program Director at The Tow Foundation, Bioh discusses today’s theatrical landscape, the importance of advocacy, and her approach to mentorship. Her play, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, directed by Whitney White, premieres on Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club on Tuesday, September 8.
EILEEN: First of all, congratulations on your second Broadway production, both at Manhattan Theatre Club, both directed by Whitney White. Tell us a little about how it’s going.
JOCELYN: So far it’s going great. We’ve assembled an amazing company. We finished casting our understudies about two weeks ago — incredible artists, many of them making their Broadway debuts, which is always exciting. And we’ve got a killer creative team — costumes, hair, set design, lighting design, sound design. It’s just a plus-plus. It really is a thrill to be working with so many amazing artists on a play that essentially changed my life.
EILEEN: You and the play have been through a lot since you were a Tow Playwright-in-Residence, when the play was first produced at MCC Theater in the 2017–2018 season. While this is the play’s first Broadway production, it’s been produced more than 75 times around the country and in the UK. Talk a little about your journey with this play?
JOCELYN: I find that every year since the play has been out and up for public consumption, it expands even my own idea of who can connect to it — who relates to the themes, who sees themselves in these young women, or even in the adult women in the play. So it continues to be a learning experience for me, which I don’t know that I thought it would still be, ten years on.
I always say I can count my life in two sections — with respect to my career, at least: the night before opening night of School Girls, and the night after. Opening night changed everything. Not just because the play was so well received critically, but because interest in me as a writer, and how seriously people took me, completely shifted.
EILEEN: Now that you’ve been all over the country with this play and others, you know a lot about the challenges faced by theaters and artists in the field. How do you see the landscape at the moment? I’d also love to hear about how you’re using the platform you’ve created through the founding of Black Women on Broadway.
JOCELYN: I think the landscape of theater, while some days it feels depressing, sad, heartbreaking, and disheartening, is also at an inflection point. There’s a massive opportunity to shift and grow with the times. I really hope those of us with the power to make that shift don’t miss it.
We’re in a different time. There’s too much pulling at people’s attention. So how do you reinvest and reinvigorate audiences to understand the excitement of live theater? I don’t think any of us has the one solution but I hope we’re meeting the moment.
As for how I see myself; I’m speaking out. It was important to me to start an organization like Black Women on Broadway, partly because people were finally taking me and my work seriously, and I wanted to pave the way for upcoming writers who don’t have the same opportunities I had coming up. There are very few play development programs left. The Lark, the Cherry Lane Alternative Mentor Project, the Humana Festival — so many of the programs that let young artists like me flex and develop our muscles just don’t exist anymore. I felt strongly that I needed to help combat that, and starting an organization was the first step.
We’ve now had four, going on five, years of building the organization and our funding. This past year, we were finally able to launch our reading series for early-career Black femme playwrights, in January — a real thrill, reading so many new voices I’d never heard of, and helping shepherd at least one into the sphere, hoping people will give them the same chances they gave me. I’m hopeful more people will want to support Black Women on Broadway and our mission, because this is what we’re going to need to survive a really fear-based decision-making moment in the field.
EILEEN: And you’ve become a mentor to others.
JOCELYN: I have, though I’d say I’m probably the most unconventional mentor, because half the time I feel like I’m still figuring this thing out too. I’m just at a different stage of figuring it out. So I try to really live that “lift as you climb” mentality with folks who’ve looked to me or come to me for support, guidance, or just to rage against the machine. I’m happy to be that soundboard.
EILEEN: Who would you consider to have been, or continue to be, your most important mentors?
JOCELYN: I feel very lucky to have had a few at different stages. Early on, when I was first getting produced or offered commissions, Dominique Morisseau and Katori Hall were incredibly helpful. Any question I had, any contract that seemed off, I could go to them and they’d tell me the truth. I was really grateful for that.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is also a dear friend. We literally came up together. I was an actor in his very first produced play, and we’ve worked together, as actor and playwright, three times over the years. I learned so much from him as a writer, working on his plays, and it created a real, deep bond and friendship. I don’t think there’s a career situation I’ve been through that I haven’t consulted him on.
And in recent years, Whitney White and Lynn Nottage have become really dear friends — the kind of friendship where we text each other about Love Island episodes and also talk about how we survive being Black women in the theater. It’s a real range. I’m so grateful to have two such monster talents to call for advice, and even more, to call friends.
EILEEN: School Girls was selected by Nikki Hunter, the new artistic director at Manhattan Theatre Club. What was the conversation like with her about remounting this play, this time on Broadway?
JOCELYN: Nikki Hunter has championed my work for a number of years. She was instrumental in getting Jaja’s African Hair Braiding to Broadway in 2023, and I think she was the quiet voice behind that institution who really understood where Manhattan Theatre Club needed to go. So I was beyond happy when she was announced as the new artistic director. It’s rare that the people who’ve spent years supporting the big figureheads at these institutions end up succeeding them. I’m really grateful the board recognized how influential and instrumental she’s been to the theater’s success and to moving it forward.
After Jaja’s, Manhattan Theatre Club offered me a commission, and that’s the new play I’m working on now.
But when we were discussing when that new play might get a production, Off-Broadway or Broadway, I told Nikki I really wanted to focus my attention on this ten-year revival of School Girls we were trying to get up and going. She said she’d love to do that if she could, and honestly, I didn’t take it that seriously — I thought she was just being nice. A few weeks later she called and said she couldn’t sleep, she was envisioning what this play looked like on the Friedman stage, envisioning having me and Whitney back with them — that she saw so strongly that this should be the play that opened her inaugural season as artistic director. When someone makes a case like that, it’s really hard to say no.
EILEEN: We’ve always felt a lasting connection to all the writers who’ve been Tow Playwrights-in-Residence, and we’re so grateful to have played even a small part in providing a launch pad for people who go on to do amazing things in their careers. And now, to see you giving back to the field the way you are — we couldn’t be more excited for you.
JOCELYN: Thank you. I think people make a mockery or romanticize the idea of the starving artist. But when you are an artist who is actually experiencing that level of oppressive financial instability, it is really scary. You genuinely don’t know where your next meal is coming from, how your rent is going to get paid, you don’t know how you’re going to survive. The residency was life changing.
EILEEN: And in turn, your plays are changing how the rest of us see and understand the world. We thank you for that. And for taking the time to speak with me today. See you on opening night!
