John Jesurun is a media artist, writer and director based in New York. His presentations integrate elements of language, architectural space and media. His exploded narratives cover a wide range of themes and explore the relation of form to content. They challenge the experience of verbal, visual and intangible perceptions. His work is distinguished by his integrated creation of the text, direction, set and media design.
B.F.A. Philadelphia College of Art/1972. M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University/1974. From 1976 to 1979 he served as a Television Content Analyst for CBS. From 1979 to 1982 he was assistant to the producer for The Dick Cavett Show producing interviews with John Hammond Sr., Odetta, Tito Puente and John and Mackenzie Phillips. In 1982 he began began his theatrical career at the Pyramid Club on the Lower East Side with his groundbreaking serial play CHANG IN A VOID MOON, now in its 62th episode. (Bessie Award). Since 1984 he has written,directed and designed over 35 pieces including: the media trilogy of DEEP SLEEP (1986 Obie Award, Best Play),WHITE WATER and BLACK MARIA, NUMBER MINUS ONE, DOG’S EYE VIEW, RED HOUSE, PHILOKTETES, SHATTERHAND MASSACREE, SLIGHT,RETURN, EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE,FIREFALL and SNOW. His company has toured extensively in Europe and the United States.
Varied directing/design credits include Roy Nathanson’s Jazz Suite, “Fire at Keaton’s” with Debby Harry and Elvis Costello at St. Ann’s, Brooklyn, Harry Partch’s opera “Delusion of the Fury” at the Japan Society and music video for Jeff Buckley. His work has been produced and presented by numerous venues including La Mama, the Kitchen, the Walker Arts Center, On the Boards, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Wexner Center, Kampnagel Theater, National Theater of Mexico, Mickery Theater, Granada Festival, Eurokaz Zagreb, Bogota International Festival, Vienna Festival, Kyoto Performing Arts Center and Spoleto USA. His short films have been shown at festivals and alternative spaces in Europe and the US.
He is the recipient of numerous grants including fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, the Rome Prize, Asian Cultural Council, National Endowment for the Arts and Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He is a 1996 MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
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Teaching: DASARTS/Amsterdam, Justus Liebig University, Goethe University, New York University, Tokyo University, Kyoto University of Art and Design,The New School, Bard College, Carnegie Mellon and Stockholm University of the Arts.
His work is published by Performing Arts Journal, Ediciones El Milagro, Theater Communications Group, Sun and Moon Press, Yale Theater Magazine, Index, Felix, Theater der Zeit, Backstage Books. Recent publications include “Shatterhand Massacree and other Media Texts” published by Performing Arts Journal and Media Trilogy by NoPassport Press.
Since 2007 productions include: “Philoktetes” at Soho Rep, “Firefall” at Dance Theater Workshop,2009. ,”Liz One” at the Chocolate Factory,2010,”Stopped Bridge of Dreams”, La Mama,2012. Three new episodes of “Chang in a Void Moon” at Incubator Arts, 2013. “Shadowland Live” at La Mama, December 2015.
2018- “Distant Observer” a collaboration with Japanese playwright Takeshi Kawamura premiered at La Mama in March 2018. Staged readings of two episodes of “Warhol” by Hilton Als at the Segal Center, CUNY. Residencies at Yaddo and Dora Maar House. Workshops at Stockholm University of the Arts.
2019: Direction/Design for “Now my Heart is Ready for My Heart” by Nicky Paraiso at La Mama. Residency at Tao House. Rome Prize Residency.
2020: Presentation of "Philoktetes" in Italian featuring actress Sylvia Gallerano at the American Academy in Rome Cinque Mostre Exhibit. (Text,Direction,Design),Live excerpt of "Chang in a Void Moon" on Culturehub DownTown Variety web presentation. "D'Arkness" produced as a podcast on “category:other”podcast website.
2021-24:
Portfolio of photographs "Lost in Space" Performing Arts Journal: issue 128.
Zoom Lecture: American Academy in Rome, “Serializing the Eternal” 2022.
CUNY Segal Center Film Festival on Theater & Performance, “Chang in a Void Moon”,March 2022.
Seven new online episodes of "Chang in a Void Moon" presented by La Mama. Written,directed and edited by John Jesurun. More in process. Viewable on Vimeo and You Tube.
2024 presentations at American Academy in Rome Salone at Judson Church, Baker Falls.
May panel at CUNY on the Pyramid Club and Chang in a Void Moon Serial.
Several film projects including “Deep Sleep”, “Black Maria”, “Last Days of Pompeii” have recently been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. His ongoing webserial “Shadowland” can be viewed on Vimeo. A revival of his play "Philoktetes" recently ran in Mexico City, directed by aclaimed director Martin Acosta.
Residencies at Ucross, Yaddo,Willapa Bay and Loghaven. Staged readings of “Letter of Intent” video text at Apt 1 space.
Vimeo:
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/johnjesurun
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/johnjesurun/
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Portfolio:LOST IN SPACE-Essay and Photo Portfolio. Performing Arts Journal,Vol.43,Issue 2,May 2021
FIREFALL – Polish Translation published in June 2010 issue of DIALOG.
LIZ ONE- in anthology “Envisioning the Americas” published by NoPassport Press
SHATTERHAND MASSACREE AND OTHER PLAYS,(Shatterhand Massacree, Snow, Firefall, Slight Return) Performing Arts Journal, 2009
A MEDIA TRILOGY (Deep Sleep, White Water, Black Maria) NoPassport Press, 2009
PHILOKTETES, On Stage Press/Samuel French,2007
PHILOKTETES in “Divine Fire, Eight Contemporary Plays Insipired by the Greeks” Backstage Books, Watson Guptill, 2005.
FAUST/HOW I ROSE, Performing Arts Journal, Sept. 2004
PHILOKTETES- (German translation by Anna Kohler) Theater der Zeit, Dec. 2004.
FILOCTETES, (Spanish) Teatro Norteamericano Contemporaneo II, Ediciones El Milagro, 2003
EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE, Sun and Moon Press.1997
MILDRED PIERCE, Remake Remodel, Index Magazine, 1997
AFTER IMAGE, 2Wice, 1997
PHILOKTETES, Theater, Yale University, 1995
Felix Magazine, Volume 1,#3/1993
“Breaking the Relentless Spool of Film Unrolling”
WHITE WATER, On New Ground,Contemporary Hispanic-American Plays Theater Communications Group,1987
DEEP SLEEP, Wordplays 5, Performing Arts Journal,1986
CHANG IN A VOID MOON,EPISODE #19,The Drama Review,T105,
(Spring 1985)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
“Correspondence and the Parallex View” Peter Eckersall,PAJ,Vol41,Issue1,Jan. 2019
“Traveling at the Speed of Thought” John Jesurun in conversation with Christophe Collard
Performing Arts Journal #115 ,(2017)
“Mediaturgy’s Troubled Tensions with Adaptation:Convergence or Divergence?” by Dr. Christophe Collard, Oxford
Journals, Sept. 2014
*John Jesurun’s Digitalist “Firefall”: Staging the Analogical Relation as Cognitive Performance
Performance Research 18.5 - special issue on 'Writing and Digital Media' (ed. Jerome Fletcher) (Routledge) (2013) by Dr. Christophe Collard
*“Chained into that Machine: John Jesurun’s Mediaturgical Adaptations” by Dr. Christophe Collard in
_The Intellectual Silk Road of Adaptation_ ed. Laurence Raw. Jefferson: McFarland, 2013
*“Processual Passing:Ron Vawter Performs Philoktetes”- Somatechnics_ 3.1 (2013) (Edinburgh UP) by Christophe Collard
*Performance as Design,The Mediaturgy of John Jesurun’s “Firefall”
Performing Arts Journal, Sept. 2010, Bonnie Marranca
*John’s Brave New World, Theater der Zeit, March 2010
Andrzej Wirth
*John Jesurun's Philoktetes and the Freeplay of Language
Peter A. Campbell,Published in: Journal Contemporary Theatre Review, Volume 20, Issue 1 February 2010 ,
*Savas Patsalidis: “John Jesurun’s Philoktetes and its Metaphors” -The Future of Flesh: A Cultural Survey of the Body, Palgrave/Macmillan(2009)
- Nick Kaye, in Multi-media:Video-Installation-Performance –Routledge(2007)
- Hans-Thies Lehmann, in Postdramatic Theater-Routledge(2006)
- Roselee Goldberg, in Performance Art,Thames and Hudson,(2001)
- Kesuke Kitano, “Shooting Through the Heart of Postmodernism”, Theater Arts Journal, Japan (1997)
- C.Carr, On Edge, Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century, Wesleyan University Press (1993)
- John Jesurun “Breaking the Relentless Spool of Film Unrolling”, in Felix, Vol.1 Postliterate #3 (1993)
- Johannes Birringer, in Theater,Theory and Postmodernism, Indiana University Press (1991)
- Roselee Goldberg- “You are a Camera”- Artforum (Jan. 1989)
- Kathleen Hulser “Electric Language” American Theatre, June 1987
- Ronald K. Fried- “The Cinematic Theater of John Jesurun” The Drama Review, Vol.29#1 (1984)
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Item description
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Following John Jesurun's exhibition last fall at Die Verabredung,
we are happy to invite you to his new play:
BURN FOLDER
written, directed and designed by John Jesurun
with
Jonathan Franz
Özlenim Meier
Thomas Schubert
Xiaoyao Xu
Produced by Die Verabredung
18–22 March 2026
at Die Verabredung
Doors at 7 pm/ starts at 8 pm/
€15.70 (including booking fees)
Performed in english
Get your tickets here
BURN FOLDER- A new play written, directed and designed by John Jesurun is staged in an intimate site specific Cologne setting. Jesurun’s German cast navigates a verbal and perceptual minefield of enciphered meanings and interpretations. The clandestine personas of four operatives negotiate the dismantling of their own reality from the confines of an anonymous house. Burn Folder is part two of a trilogy which began last year in New York with Letter of Intent.
Following John Jesurun's exhibition last fall at Die Verabredung,
we are happy to invite you to his new play:
BURN FOLDER
written, directed and designed by John Jesurun
with
Jonathan Franz
Özlenim Meier
Thomas Schubert
Xiaoyao Xu
Produced by Die Verabredung
18–22 March 2026
at Die Verabredung
Doors at 7 pm/ starts at 8 pm/
€15.70 (including booking fees)
Performed in english
Get your tickets here
BURN FOLDER- A new play written, directed and designed by John Jesurun is staged in an intimate site specific Cologne setting. Jesurun’s German cast navigates a verbal and perceptual minefield of enciphered meanings and interpretations. The clandestine personas of four operatives negotiate the dismantling of their own reality from the confines of an anonymous house. Burn Folder is part two of a trilogy which began last year in New York with Letter of Intent.