Jacob is a playwright and scholar who heads the Playwriting MFA program at Southern Illinois University (SIU).
Jacob Juntunen heads the Playwriting MFA at SIU (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale) and is the Founding Artistic Director of Contraband Theatre. His plays include 18 Months After November, Hath Taken Away, In the Shadow of His Language, Joan’s Laughter, Under America, and Saddam’s Lions. Jacob’s play See Him? was in the Belarusian Dream Theater: eighteen theaters in thirteen countries simultaneously producing plays to raise awareness about human rights violations in Belarus. Jacob’s plays have been produced or developed by theatres such as Playwrights Horizons, the Alliance Theatre, the Source Festival, the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Chicago Dramatists, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, and Chicago’s DCase. Jacob’s scholarship and playwriting have been supported by the Fulbright Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Krakow’s International Cultural Center, the Illinois Arts Council, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, SIU’s SEED Grant, and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. www.jacobjuntunen.com
