Jerry Lieblich (USA)
Authors / Theater
Jerry Lieblich (they/them) live in New York City and play in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Jerry holds BA from the Yale University (Philosophy) and MFA from Brooklyn College (Drama). Their work experiments with language as a way to explore and expand textures of consciousness and attention.
Jerry’s palys include D DEB DEBBIE DEBORAH (Clubbed Thumb – Critic’s Pick: NY Times), UNDYING IN YIDDERLAND (Kulturhaus Mousontorum), EVERYTHING FOR DAWN (Experiments in Opera), TONGUE DEPRESSOR (The Public Theatre), NOSTALGIA IS A MILD FORM OF GRIEF(Playwrights Horizons), GHOST STORIES (Cloud City – Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), THE BARBARIANS (New York Theatre Workshop) and YOUR HAIR LOOKED GREAT (Abrons Arts Center).
Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days.
Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Millay Arts, Blue Mountain Center, NACL, SPACE on Ryder Farm, UCROSS, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. They have received a EST/Sloan Commission, the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award (twice), and a Martha Boschen Porter Fund grant from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. They are a 2023-4 Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellow with Yiddishkayt, an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Page 73’s I-73 Writer’s Group, and Pipeline Theater’s Playlab group.
Works (selection)
D DEB DEBBIE DEBORAH
2015
The Wild Project, New York City
Her friend rings the doorbell and turns out to be a mysterious intruder.
Her boyfriend demands an enormous amount of attention because his mother is in the hospital due to an undefinable lung disease.
Her new boss, a trendy painter, constantly projects strange expectations of her assistance.
At the art parties as in private, Deb feels confused, lost, out of place: what does she actually want? And what do the people around her want from her? As if in mirror land, for Deb events are distorted, faces blurred and boundaries vague. Who is who? And who is she?
“Jerry Lieblich’s dizzyingly clever new play…Directed with deceptively easygoing agility by Lee Sunday Evans…subverts our faith in fixed identities through simple but sly theatrical devices……Five cast members…melt and morph before our eyes with a splendidly assured lack of assurance…You’ll develop a case of existential wooziness that brings to mind ‘Vertigo’…Mr. Lieblich’s dramatic intentions are always clear.” – Ben Brantley, The New York Times – Critic’s Pick
“D Deb Debbie Deborah boasts moments of slippery gorgeousness, some of which have to be seen to be believed…Lieblich’s trickery is rooted in a deep understanding of what live performance makes possible…Lieblich has managed the ultimate bit of theatrical prestidigitation. Shazam, folks! Out of nowhere, he appears on the scene.” – Helen Shaw, Time Out NY – Four Stars, Critic’s Pick