Jump to content

Jason Grote

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jason Grote
Headshot of a man with curly hair.
Grote in 2005
OccupationPlaywright, screenwriter
EducationNew York University (MFA)
GenreSurrealism, satire
Notable works1001, Maria/Stuart, Civilization (all you can eat), "The Crash", Rogue, Knightfall
SpouseLorraine Martindale

Jason Grote (born 1971)[1] is an American playwright and screenwriter. He wrote a series of plays in the 2000s that were known for addressing contemporary themes in the context of classic literature with multilayered stories jumping back and forth between fantastic and realistic scenes. In the 2010s, Grote became a television writer with credits on Smash, Mad Men, Rogue and Knightfall, as well as the video game series BioShock.

Early life and education

[edit]

Grote was born in Lakewood Township, New Jersey and raised in a working-class family.[2][3] He studied theater at Montclair State University, where he took a playwriting class, then moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1997.[2][4][5] After a few years of acting, writing and directing in New York—including having a play performed at the New York International Fringe Festival—Grote enrolled in the master of fine arts program at New York University, graduating in 2003.[4][6]

Playwriting career

[edit]

Grote's early plays included The New Jersey Book of the Dead;[7] Box Americana, a play about Walmart that includes a "chatty phantom named Sam, who happens to be the spirit of late capitalism";[8] and This Storm Is What We Call Progress, a Kabbalah-themed story that premiered at the Washington's Rorschach Theatre in 2008.[9] During his playwriting career, Grote has had residencies with New Dramatists and at Yaddo.[10][11] He received a commission from the theater collective Radiohole to write the text for their performance Tarzana.[12]

1001

[edit]

Grote's first major success was 1001, a play inspired by the One Thousand and One Nights. 1001 premiered at the Denver Center Theater in 2007[13] and later that year played at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York. The play jumps back and forth between the setting of the stories with the central character Scheherazade, who morphs into Dahna, a New York-based Palestinian grad student, while Scheherazade's violent husband Shahriyar morphs into Dahna's Jewish boyfriend, Alan. The layered plot includes stories within the story that involve Gustave Flaubert and Jorge Luis Borges.

According to The New York Times, the play was "often heavy-handed" but praised its "dynamic storytelling [for] spin[ning] us over the rough spots."[14] The play won an Ovation Award from The Denver Post.[15] Grote adapted 1001 into a musical, with music by Marisa Michelson, which debuted off-Broadway in 2018. The New York Times said the show was "at its best when it flat-out mocks American ignorance and the stubbornness of ethnic clichés" but critiqued Grote's book for getting "bogged down as it tries to layer a time-shifting plot".[16] Tablet praised Grote's skill with dialogue but called the characters "frustratingly trope-laden."[17]

Maria/Stuart

[edit]

In 2008, Maria/Stuart premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., with Sarah Marshall in a starring role.[18] The play is a dramedy adapted from Friedrich Schiller's play Mary Stuart, drawn from the relationship of Elizabeth I and her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. The play focuses on female rivalry in a contemporary U.S. suburban environment and includes supernatural elements.[19] According to The Washington Post, This Storm Is What We Call Progress and Maria/Stuart established Grote's reputation for "scripts that explode the boundaries between the ordinary and the chimerical, the political and the aesthetic, the intimate and the dizzyingly cosmic."[8]

Civilization (all you can eat)

[edit]

From 2008 to 2011, Grote developed a surreal satire of contemporary life called Civilization (all you can eat), which features a plotline involving a pig named Big Hog plotting an escape from an abattoir layered into a story about a struggling waitress, her daughter who seeks financial success through online pornography. The play also addresses commercialism and interracial marriage.[20] According to Grote, it "documents the very beginning of the romance with Obama, the backlash against Obama, and the dawn of social media."[21] Civilization was mounted at Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks festival in 2011, then given a world premiere at Woolly Mammoth, with Sarah Marshall in the role of Big Hog, in 2012.[22]

Habit

[edit]

Toward the end of his time in New York, Grote wrote a devised theatre work called Children of Kings for David M. Levine's performance installation Habit, which premiered in 2012.[23] For the play-within-a-play, a ranch house set was constructed inside a warehouse, with three actors performing Grote's 90-minute play on a loop. Audience members would enter and depart at any point during the performance and could only view the play through the windows and doors of the house.[24] Grote described the script as "a parody of the realism that dominated American stages at the time."[4] Habit was recognized with a special citation in the 2013 Obie Awards.[25]

Basetrack Live

[edit]

In 2014 Grote adapted an online citizen journalism project called One-Eight Basetrack with Seth Bockley and Anne Hamburger for En Garde Arts. The multimedia theatrical piece, called Basetrack Live, is drawn entirely from text about the impact of war on veterans and their families. It premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival and was a New York Times critics' pick, with Charles Isherwood saying, "this production brings the gritty, brutal truths alive in ways that nothing I've read or seen has succeeded in doing."[26]

Television career

[edit]

In 2010, the post-financial crisis recession affecting live theater and a layoff from a teaching job at Rutgers University left Grote unemployed. He pivoted to television writing with work on Smash, a musical drama series that premiered in 2012.[27] Grote relocated to Los Angeles, where he continued to work on television shows, including Hannibal, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, Rogue (for which he was also story editor) and Knightfall (which he also co-produced).[10][28]

For his work on the Mad Men episode "The Crash", International Business Times said that Grote and Matthew Weiner "got one of the very best performances we've seen from Jon Hamm in an episode that delivers scenes almost too funny to be believed alongside genuine, nail-biting terror."[29] That episode was named the 9th best episode of the show by Entertainment Weekly.[30] In 2012, he was one of the Mad Men writers nominated for the Writers Guild of America Awards for television drama.[31]

Grote also co-wrote Poppy, a TV comedy pilot about the young George H. W. Bush with Will Menaker and Matt Christman of the Chapo Trap House podcast.[32]

Other activities and personal life

[edit]

Grote has written for the BioShock video game franchise and was a contributor to The Brooklyn Rail.[4][33] In addition to his writing, Grote has taught writing at Rutgers University, the University of California, San Diego, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Queens College (CUNY), the University of Rochester, Hollins University, Point Park University and Whitman College.[10][34] He was also a DJ on the New Jersey free-form radio station WFMU.[10]

Grote has been involved in political activism. He was arrested inside the Times Square Disney Store along with Reverend Billy and others in 1999 while protesting the company's usage of sweatshop labor.[35] Of that event he said "We can't hope to overwhelm this level of late-capitalist spectacle, but we can grab it, transform it and reverse its purpose: we can use it to reveal."[35] During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, he dressed with clown makeup in an Air National Guard uniform emblazoned with the words "Mission Complicated" in mockery of George W. Bush.[7] At one time, he was "arrested in a demonstration that involved releasing 10,000 crickets in downtown New York to protest the city's sale of community gardens," according to The Washington Post.[8] As a Writers Guild of America member, he has advocated for contracts that enable writers to maintain middle-class lifestyles.[4][28]

Grote is married to novelist Lorraine Martindale.[11] They have two children.[27][28]

Works

[edit]

Stage

[edit]
Year Title Notes
2004 The New Jersey Book of the Dead Premiered at Bloomington Playwrights Project, Bloomington, Indiana[7]
2006 Box Americana Premiered at the Working Theater, New York City[36]
2007 1001 Premiered at Denver Center Theater[13]
2008 Hamilton Township Premiered at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Austin, Texas[37]
2008 This Storm Is What We Call Progress Premiered at Rorschach Theatre, Washington, D.C.[9]
2008 Maria/Stuart Premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington, D.C.
2008 Darwin's Challenge First reading at Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York City[38]
2009 Three Classics Collection of three one-act plays: (Anti)gone, In His Bold Gaze, My Ruin is Writ Large and Prometheus Rendered[39]
2011 Civilization (all you can eat) Premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington, D.C., 2012
2012 Children of Kings Premiered as a play within a play during David M. Levine's performance installation Habit[23]
2014 Basetrack Live Premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival
2015-6 Tarzana A collaboration with Radiohole at Mass Live Arts and The Performing Garage
2017 Shostakovich, or Silence[40]
2018 One Thousand Nights and One Day Musical adaptation of 1001 with music by Marisa Michelson

Television

[edit]
Year Title Writer (individual episodes) Story editor Producer
2012 Smash Yes No No
2013 Mad Men Yes No No
2014 Hannibal Yes No No
2015 The Lizzie Borden Chronicles Yes No No
2015–16 Rogue Yes Yes No
2017–18 Knightfall Yes No Yes
[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Jason Grote". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  2. ^ a b Horwitz, Andy (June 15, 2009). "Five Questions for Jason Grote". Culturebot. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  3. ^ "Interview with Jason Grote". Playwrights Foundation. March 15, 2007. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e "'The Oculus' Interview: Jason Grote". The Blurst of Times. Medium. July 9, 2023. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  5. ^ "Spotlight on Alums Spring 2010". Montclair State University. March 15, 2010. Retrieved May 9, 2025.
  6. ^ Marshall, Samantha. "M.F.A. now, pay later". Crain's New York Business. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  7. ^ a b c Walker, George (October 16, 2004). "The New Jersey Book of the Dead". Indiana Public Media. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  8. ^ a b c Wren, Celia (August 17, 2008). "Theater Is His Medium; Playwriting His Seance". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  9. ^ a b Marks, Peter (June 24, 2008). "'This Storm': Partly Cloudy, With Lightning". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  10. ^ a b c d Child. "Jason Grote". New Dramatists. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  11. ^ a b Kachka, Boris (April 14, 2022). "Meet the Writers: A movable feast of locals and transplants, with big books on the menu". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  12. ^ Tran, Diep (July 21, 2015). "Radiohole Returns to Gooey Form With 'Tarzana'". AMERICAN THEATRE. Retrieved May 10, 2025.
  13. ^ a b "1001". Concord Theatricals. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  14. ^ James, Caryn (November 1, 2008). "Stories of Arabian Nights and a Dystopian New York". The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  15. ^ Sierra, Gabrielle (December 8, 2009). "Colorado New Play Summit Announces 2010 Readings". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  16. ^ Collins-Hughes, Laura (April 15, 2018). "Review: In 'One Thousand Nights and One Day,' New Tales of Old Persia". The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  17. ^ Geselowitz, Gabriela (April 20, 2018). "In Ambitious New Play, Scheherazade Tells of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict". Tablet. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  18. ^ Trompeter, Erin (August 28, 2008). "Cleaning Up the Past: 'Maria/Stuart'". Washington Post Express. Retrieved April 21, 2025.
  19. ^ Harris, Paul (September 2, 2008). "Maria/Stuart". Variety. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  20. ^ Marks, Peter (February 21, 2012). "A full plate of the surreal in 'Civilization (All You Can Eat)'". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 21, 2025.
  21. ^ Grote, Jason (Fall 2019). "Civilization (All You Can Eat) Playwright's Notes". Blackbird. 18 (2). Retrieved April 21, 2025.
  22. ^ Saltz, Rachel (June 22, 2011). "'Civilization (All You Can Eat)' at Here". The New York Times. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  23. ^ a b Cermatori, Joseph (September 28, 2012). "David Levine's 'Habit': A play, an environment, a social commentary". Politico. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  24. ^ Brantley, Ben (September 23, 2012). "You Have a Role in This Play: Peeping Tom". The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  25. ^ Gans, Andrew (May 20, 2013). "Detroit, Grimly Handsome, Eisa Davis, John Rando, Shuler Hensley and More Are Obie Winners". Playbill. Archived from the original on June 14, 2013. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  26. ^ Isherwood, Charles (November 12, 2014). "Lives of Returning Marines in 'Basetrack Live' at BAM". The New York Times. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  27. ^ a b Davidson, Kate (February 15, 2013). "After a year of unemployment — finally, a job". Marketplace. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  28. ^ a b c Grote, Jason (May 2, 2017). "We Write Your Favorite Shows. We Need to Get Paid". The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  29. ^ Killoran, Ellen (May 20, 2013). "'Mad Men' Season 6 Episode 8 Recap: The Doors of Perception". International Business Times. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  30. ^ "The 20 Best Episodes of 'Mad Men'". EW.com. May 4, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  31. ^ Stone, Sasha. "Writers Guild Announces TV Nominees". Awards Daily. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  32. ^ Fedorov, Andrew (January 23, 2025). "'Chapo Trap House' Isn't Going to Save the Democrats". Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  33. ^ Grote, Jason (July 29, 2024). "Jason Grote". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  34. ^ "Jason Grote". Playscripts. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  35. ^ a b Grote, Jason (2002). "The God that people who do not believe in God believe in: Taking a bust with Reverend Billy.". In Duncombe, Stephen (ed.). Cultural resistance reader. New York: Verso. pp. 358–369. ISBN 1859843794. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  36. ^ "Box Americana: A Wal-Mart Retail Fantasia at the Bank Street Theater". New York Theatre Guide. October 19, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  37. ^ Pineo, Barry (June 13, 2008). "Hamilton Township". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  38. ^ Hetrick, Adam (January 14, 2009). "Ensemble Studio Theatre Announces First Light 2009 Line-Up". Playbill. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  39. ^ Grote, Jason (2009). Three Classics. Playscripts. ISBN 9781623846619. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  40. ^ Stephens, Ted (March 6, 2017). "Eavesdropping on the Russians". Local Theater Company. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jason_Grote&oldid=1291383554"