Publications:

The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance (2018), An interview with Woodie King, Jr.

gallery

images from dreaming byhoward craft torrry bend & jameeka
holloway | The typographers dream by adam bock (feat. jorose,
lazarus simmons & jessica flemming) | twelfth night in modern
verse trans. by alsion carey ( feat. reg douglass & asia mark) |
white by james ijames (feat. monet marshall, ac donahue, jordan
clifton & raely qui | single black female by lisa b thompson (feat
Kyma lasitter and lauren foster-lee)

by August Wilson

Arts Center of Coastal Carolina Winter 2024

Arts Center of Coastal Carolina

January 2024

General Manager - Richard Feldman

Director - JaMeeka Holloway | Scenic - MeJah Balams |
Costumes - Pamela Bond | Sound - Marlo Griffith

Photos Taken by Gustavo Rattia

Kent State

MUCH ADO
ABOUT
NOTHING

choreographer & associate director Jessie Cope
Miller | assistant director Austin Verstreater |
costume design by Victoria Mearini | lighting
design by Jaemin Park | scenic design Tamara L.
Honesty | sound design Chuck Hatcher

Charleston Gaillard Center

by Celeste
Jennings

CITRUS

*Northern Stage, Vermont.

by JACQUELINE E.
LAWTON

I’m not a Shakespeare scholar. I approach his work like a sleuth, a
historian, and a dramaturgical creative architect. I don’t just ask what
these plays say; I ask what they do, what they’ve done, and what they
make possible when placed in the hands, mouths, and imaginations
of people they were never written for.

~My interest in Shakespeare isn’t about preservation—it’s about
excavation and possibility. The fact that his plays exist in the public
domain means they’re a classic song waiting for a new vocal
interpretation and arrangement. Shakespeare’s characters speak in
verse, but they live in subtext. As a Black Southern woman, I
recognize that—because I come from a culture that also speaks
between the lines.

Still, we cannot ignore that these texts were created within—and
have been upheld by—systems of empire, patriarchy, and exclusion.
I’m interested in disruption, recontextualization, and reframing.

Each encounter or adaptation, my entry way is shaped by place,
purpose, and the people in the room. I’m not looking to “modernize”
the plays with cute references—I’m looking to interrogate and
intervene, to reimagine how language, power, and identity operate
inside the world of the play and our own.

When I directed Much Ado About Nothing at Kent State, set in the
universe of Gossip Girl, we looked to the world of elite academic
achievement, status obsession, and social media surveillance mirrors
Shakespeare’s original themes—but invites the audience to recognize
them through a contemporary cultural frame. In that version, Hero
walks away. Innogen, Leonato’s wife—often erased entirely from the
play—takes the lead. The women reclaim agency, and justice isn’t
assumed. It’s demanded.

In Othello, I set the play at Venice College, a prestigious, all-female
PWI. Othello, played by Nubia Monks, is brilliant and beloved—but
her excellence threatens the very systems that celebrated her. Iago is
not an outsider—she’s an “ally.” The betrayal is intimate. The violence
is microaggressive until it isn’t. That production was not a tragedy
about jealousy—it was a critique of white liberalism and the cost of
navigating power as a Black woman in predominantly white
institutions.

To direct Shakespeare responsibly is to acknowledge the
contradictions embedded in the work and the history surrounding it.
And, I align with scholars like Ayanna Thompson, who challenge us to
turn the dial—not to destroy the canon, but to reshape its contours. If
Shakespeare is the most produced playwright in the world, lets
leverage his frequency to create space, shift perspective, and reflect
our multiplicity.

On SHAKESPEARE

By JaMeeka Holloway

August Wilson’s Fences is more than a canonical work of
American theatre—it’s a reckoning. With legacy. With love.
With labor. With what we carry from our parents, and what we
pass down, intentionally or not, to our children.

When I return to Wilson’s work, I’m returning to something
familiar and sacred. Not in a romanticized way—but with
respect for how deeply it speaks to the lived experiences of
Black families in America. As someone raised in the South by
people shaped by migration, faith, survival, and resilience,
Fences feels like walking into a room I already know. These
characters don’t feel fictional to me. They feel like family.

My approach to this play—as both a director and dramaturg—
is rooted in empathy, curiosity, and cultural truth-telling. The
opening quote of the play—“When the sins of our fathers visit
us, we do not have to play host. We can banish them with
forgiveness…”—became a guiding light. It reminded me that
theatre doesn’t just hold up a mirror. It opens a door. A door
to transformation, healing, and collective reflection.

Directing Gabe was a process of deep research and ethical responsibility. I leaned
into August Wilson’s framing of his “spectacle characters” and rejected any
approach that reduced Gabe to a stereotype. His trauma—as both a disabled
veteran and a Black man wounded by the state—deserved to be rendered with
care, dimensionality, and dignity. I grounded this portrayal in conversation with
disabled artists, veterans, and historical context—because representation is not
just a casting choice. It’s a political one.

On Directing FENCES

By August Wilson

In alignment with Wilson’s vision, I wanted to highlight both the structural weight of
systemic racism and the beauty, nuance, and complexity of our people. We center
struggle, yes—but also spirit, style, tenderness, and the enduring power of culture to
sustain us.

Design played an integral role in building this world. Mejah Balams’ set was immersive
and rooted in sensory memory. The soundscape pulled from Pittsburgh’s industrial
heartbeat, the street corners of the Hill District, and the intergenerational tension
between jazz and blues. We used The Great Pretender by The Platters as a recurring
motif—a sonic thread exploring the facades our characters wear, especially Troy, and
the emotional toll of pretending to be okay in a world designed to crush you.

Full dramaturgy packet by JDH here.

by JaMeeka Holloway

On New Play Development &
Collaboration

by JaMeeka Holloway

When I moved from North Carolina to New York in 2011, one of my first
real steps into the professional theatre world was interning at The Lark
Play Development Center. That space became my first introduction to
the wide, exhilarating, and intimate world of new play development. I
was immersed in process—script readings, writer retreats, talkbacks,
working sessions—and most importantly, relationships. That’s where I
learned: there is no one-size-fits-all model for developing a new play.
Because there’s no one-size-fits-all playwright.

Every writer brings their own rhythm, their own relationship to structure,
form, feedback, time, and trust. And what a playwright needs most—
before the pages, before the rewrites—is someone in the room who
honors their voice and sees their humanity. That’s where I begin.

When I collaborate with a playwright, I don’t come in with a blueprint. I
come with questions. I come with curiosity. I listen for what’s there and
what’s trying to emerge. I ask how they like to work. What they're
holding close. What they’re unsure about. I make space for the story
behind the story. Because new play development isn’t just about shaping
a script—it’s about building the conditions for the story to come through
fully.

My approach is dramaturgical, yes—but it’s also spiritual.
Emotional. Tactile. I lean into what lives between the lines:
the silences, the contradictions, the hesitations. And I hold
space for that process to be messy. Because when we’re
building something new—something that hasn’t existed
before—we have to honor the instability of invention.

I believe in holding writers gently and rigorously. That’s the
balance. To offer clear eyes and soft hands. To create an
environment where everyone in the room feels respected,
empowered, and heard. That includes designers, stage
managers, actors, producers. We’re not just workshopping a
script—we’re cultivating a living ecosystem. And that takes
care.

Some of the most powerful work I’ve done has come from
longstanding collaborations with people like Celeste
Jennings, Kathy Perkins, Mejah Balams—artists I trust and
return to because we speak the same creative language.
Those relationships don’t just make the work smoother—
they make it deeper. They allow for risk. They make space
for growth.

At the center of my new work process is relationship—not
just with the people, but with the material itself. And when
that relationship is honored, the work expands. The room
breathes. And what’s born is not just a play, but a fuller,
more textured story that carries the fingerprints of everyone
who believed in it.