Aisha’s moved back to the block, but the neighborhood’s changed. She’s an urban planner, returning to her hometown, renovating a townhouse that’s seen better days. Aisha tries to convince her husband to spring for crown molding and endures the noise that blares from the street all night. But when their contractor is caught up in an act of violence a block away, Aisha’s homecoming becomes more complex than she expected. A Studio-commissioned play by 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames, Good Bones explores gentrification and belonging, displacement and upward mobility, and being haunted by a legacy you’re only just beginning to understand.
Good Bones is generously underwritten by Sari Hornstein and by Amy Weinberg and Norbert Hornstein.
James Ijames is a playwright, director, actor, and educator. His plays include Fat Ham (winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) at The Public Theater and The Wilma Theater, Kill Move Paradise at the National Black Theatre and The Wilma Theater, White at Theatre Horizon, and The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington at Flashpoint Theatre Company. His plays have been produced by Definition Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Shotgun Players, and have been developed with PlayPenn New Play Development Conference, The Lark, Playwrights Horizon, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theatre, Azuka Theatre, and Victory Gardens. As an actor, he has appeared regionally in productions at Arden Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Baltimore Center Stage, Mauckingbird Theatre Company, and People’s Light. James is the recipient of the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist, 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 and Gem of the Ocean with Arden Theatre Company. He was a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award, and received the Steinberg Prize in 2020. James was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective. He received a BA in Drama from Morehouse College and an MFA in Acting from Temple University. He is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and a Co-Artistic Director of The Wilma Theater.
(As of June 2022)
Psalmayene 24 is an award-winning director, playwright, and actor. Directing credits include Flow and Pass Over at Studio Theatre, Necessary Sacrifices: A Radio Play at Ford’s Theatre, Native Son at Mosaic Theater Company, Word Becomes Flesh at Theater Alliance, Cinderella: The Remix at Imagination Stage, and Not Enuf Lifetimes at The Welders. Playwriting credits include Dear Mapel and Les Deux Noirs: Notes on Notes of a Native Son at Mosaic Theater Company, The Frederick Douglass Project co-written with Deirdre Kinahan at Solas Nua, and Zomo the Rabbit: A Hip-Hop Creation Myth at Imagination Stage. His solo play, Free Jujube Brown! is published in the anthology Plays from the Boom Box Galaxy: Theater from the Hip Hop Generation. Acting credits include Ruined at Arena Stage, Free Jujube Brown! at The African Continuum Theatre Company, and HBO’s The Wire. He is the writer/director of the short film The Freewheelin’ Insurgents. Psalm is the host of Psalm’s Salons at Studio, an interview-based cultural series that celebrates theatre and community through a Black lens. He is the recipient of a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play and has received the Imagination Award from Imagination Stage. His work has received grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Walt Disney Corporation. Psalm is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Mosaic Theater Company. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Dramatists Guild, and Actors’ Equity Association. On social media at @psalmayene24 (Instagram).
(As of June 2022)