Resident Director

JAMES IJAMES is a playwright, director and educator. He has appeared regionally in productions at Arden Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Wilma Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Mauckingbird Theatre Company and People’s Light. James’ plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theater Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon, Wilma Theatre (Philadelphia, PA), The National Black Theatre (NYC), Definition Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago, IL) Shotgun Players (Berkeley, CA) and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwright’s Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theatre, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre and Victory Gardens. James is the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist recipient, and he received two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play (for Superior Donuts and Angels in America) and two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction of a Play (for The Brothers Size with Simpatico Theatre Company and Gem of the Ocean with Arden Theatre). James was the 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrence McNally New Play Award for WHITE, the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for ....Miz Martha, a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award, a 2019 Kesselring Prize for Kill Move Paradise and a 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award. James was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective. He received a BA in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and a MFA in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. James is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and a co-artistic director of the Wilma Theater. He resides in South Philadelphia.