Jacob is a playwright and scholar who heads the Playwriting MFA program at Southern Illinois University (SIU).
Before Jacob Juntunen was a father heading the playwriting MFA at SIU and living in St. Louis, he was a 1970s California kid watching PBS puppets. In the 1990s, Jacob was a high school dropout making sandwiches at a deli in Portland. The teachers at Clackamas Community College and Edward Albee saved him. In 1998, he saw a VHS tape of Tadeusz Kantor’s theatre and that made him live in Poland repeatedly. His plays include See You in a Minute, 18 Months After November, Hath Taken Away, In the Shadow of His Language, and Joan’s Laughter. He founded Contraband Theatre in 2016. You can read his plays on New Play Exchange. www.jacobjuntunen.com
