C. J. Hopkins is an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while othe ...

, and

political satirist Political satire is satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where suc ...

. Among his works are the plays ''Horse Country'', ''screwmachine/eyecandy'' and '' The Extremists''.

Career

Early works

Hopkins was a 1994 Drama League of New York Developing Artist Fellow and a 1995 Resident Artist/Jerome Foundation Fellow at

Mabou Mines Mabou Mines is an experimental theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City. Founding and history Mabou Mines was founded by David Warrilow, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Philip Glass, at the house of Akalaitis a ...

/Suite.

''Horse Country''

His 1992 play, ''Horse Country'', had its UK premiere at the 2002

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

Lyn Gardner Lyn Gardner is a British theatre critic, children's writer and journalist who contributes reviews and articles to ''The Stage,'' '' Stagedoor'' and has written for ''The Guardian''. Theatre critic and educator A graduate in drama and English fro ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' wrote: "Hopkins's two-hander brings the spirit of Godot to America's bars and puts the bourbon in Beckett. It feels like a serious piece of theatre rather than fringe fluff." It won a ''

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'' Fringe First for New Writing and the 2002 ''Scotsman'' Best of the Fringe Firsts Award, and later won the 2004 Best of The

Adelaide Fringe The Adelaide Fringe, formerly Adelaide Fringe Festival, is the world's second-largest annual arts festival (after the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Between mid-February and mid-March each year, ...

Award. Following its London premiere at

Riverside Studios Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production. Having closed for redevelopment in ...

, ''Horse Country'' toured the UK, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.

Later works

Hopkins' play ''screwmachine/eyecandy'' was copyrighted in 1994, but updated when it was performed a decade later. A production ran during the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Assembly Rooms when ''The Scotsman'' described it as a "dark and twisted comedy" about the American game show in which "the excesses of American culture are held up to the light, roundly lampooned and shown to be the poisonous, culturally carcinogenic threats that they really are." It received a ''Scotsman'' Fringe First Award for New Writing. The US production was presented at

59E59 Theaters 59E59 Theaters is a curated rental venue located in New York City that consists of three theater spaces or stages. It shows both off-Broadway (in Theater A) and off-off-Broadway plays (in Theaters B and C). The complex is owned and operated by ...

in New York in 2006. Mark Blankenship wrote in his review for ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'': "Although he apes the themes of everything from ''1984'' to ''Series 7,'' a film about a murderous reality show, Hopkins delivers his dogmatism with heavy-handed arrogance." A production was presented at the PushPush theater in Decatur, Georgia in 2008, and it was performed at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2017. Also in 2006, Hopkins' commission by the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in poli ...

to write and direct a site-specific work, ''The Insurgency'', was staged in German at the university's

Philological Library The Philological Library (german: Philologische Bibliothek) is a component of the "Rust and Silver Lodges" complex in the main campus of the Freie Universität Berlin. It was designed by internationally known architect Norman Foster, Baron Foster ...

. His 2009 play '' The Extremists'', commissioned by 7 Stages and directed by Walter D. Asmus, premiered in Berlin and Atlanta in 2010.

Bibliography

Plays

* Horse Country,

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, (2004) * screwmachine/eyecandy,

Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Broadway Play Publishing Inc (BPPI) was established in New York City in 1982 to publish and license the stage performance rights of contemporary American plays. The Broadway Play Publishing Inc catalog consists of over 1,000 plays and nearly 400 ...

, (2007) * The Extremists,

, (2010) * The Insurgency, Bordercrossing Berlin, Verlagshaus J. Frank (2006) * cunnilinguistics * How To Entertain the Rich * The Installation * A Place Like This

Essays

* ''Trumpocalypse: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. I (2016-2017)'', Consent Factory Publishing (self-published), November 20, 2019 * ''The War on Populism Consent Factory Essays Vol. II (2018-2019)'', Consent Factory Publishing (self-published), September 21, 2020,

Novels

* ''Zone 23'', (self published, 2017)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkins, Cj 1961 births Living people 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers American male dramatists and playwrights Postmodern theatre Screenwriting instructors American male novelists 21st-century American novelists Writers from Miami Novelists from Florida