Agnes Borinsky

Last updated
Agnes Borinsky
OccupationPlaywright, novelist
Period2017-present
Notable works Sasha Masha
Notable awardsLambda Literary Award (nominee)

Agnes Borinsky is a Jewish American playwright and author. She is the author of the young adult novel Sasha Masha, which is a coming-of-age story about a queer Jewish American girl. It led to her nomination for a Lambda Award in 2021. In 2022 she wrote and performed in A Song of Songs, which retold through a queer lens the biblical book Song of Songs. In 2023 her play The Trees premiered at Playwrights Horizons' theatre; the work imagines the lives of siblings whose bodies root into the earth in a Connecticut park. This work was compared to Waiting for Godot, Sagittarius Ponderosa and How to Live in a House on Fire.

Contents

Life

Borinsky comes from Baltimore and her mother is from Boston. [1] She lived for some years in New York before she moved to Los Angeles. In 2012 she joined Donna Oblongata who was directing a play based on Les Miserables. The unconventional play was said to be unlicensed, [2] although the origanal book of Les Misérables is out of copyright. [3] The play was performed for a week on the east coast of America after the fifty-plus cast had rehearsed the work under a circus tent. [2] In 2016 she became an Artist-in-Residence at the University Settlement [4] where Alison Fleminger encouraged her to abandon the restrictions of writing a conventional play. As a result Borinsky led over twenty collaborators to create a participatory show called "Weird Classrooms". Her next project was a working group based in Brooklyn at the Bushwick Starr theatre. [2]

Writings

An early experimental theatre piece, Of Government, was commissioned in 2015 and performed in 2017. [5] It was reviewed by the New York Times as having a "globe-crossing plot that is as twisty and slippery as ... an eel", with an opening musical number reminiscent of The Little Mermaid. [6] Borinsky's first novel was published in 2020. [7] [8] Sasha Masha is a coming-of-age story about a queer Jewish American girl, but, according to Kirkus Reviews, unlike other books of the genre "doesn’t arrive at a clear resolution possessing all the answers, instead displaying a sense of peace with the ongoing journey ahead". [7] [9] The same year Borinsky established The Working Group for a New Spirit, which brought together creative practitioners online during the COVID-19 pandemic to discuss texts. [2] [10]

In 2022 Borinsky retold the biblical book Song of Songs through a queer perspective, which debuted at the Bushwick Starr, with the writer also in a central role, and was directed by Machel Ross. [11] [12] A participatory work, audience members were invited to place paper offerings on an altar, referred to by the reviewer as a "shrine to the dead". [13] The New York Times described the work as "deeply affecting" and one that led the "audience toward a meditative consideration of their own mourning for those they have lost, to death or otherwise". [13]

In 2023 her play The Trees premiered at Playwrights Horizons' theatre; the work imagines the lives of siblings whose bodies root into the earth in a Connecticut park. [14] [15] [16] Directed by Tina Satter, [17] the play deals with themes of mutual care, community, queer liberation and civil rights. [18] The New York Theatre Guide criticised Borinsky's plot, but also compared the work to Waiting for Godot. [17] In a similarly mixed review, the New York Times described how in the play "Borinsky invites guesses; the problem is that we might not care enough for any of the people or ideas onstage to bother hazarding them". [19] The work has been compared to Sagittarius Ponderosa by MJ Kaufman and How to Live in a House on Fire by Kari Barclay. [20] The three works examine the impact of (wild)fire through queer perspectives. [20] Indeed, Borinsky's work has been discussed as part of a "trans theatre" movement. [21]


Awards

Personal life

Borinsky is Jewish American; she is also transgender. [23] [8] She lives in Los Angeles. [24]

Selected works

Novels

Plays

References

  1. ↑ Kelley, Rich (2016-01-21). "Agnes Borinsky on Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, Boston, Baltimore, Yiddish, and RUTH". Ensemble Studio Theatre. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Krane, Daniel (2024-07-30). "Through the Uncertainty, Agnes Borinsky and the Working Group for a New Spirit Are Taking Inventory of Our Lives | The Brooklyn Rail". brooklynrail.org. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  3. ↑ Hugo, Victor (1886). Les misérables. G. Routledge and sons.
  4. ↑ "Past Artists-In-Residence". University Settlement. 2020-05-27. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  5. ↑ Gilmer, Sigrid; Gionfriddo, Gina; Barron, Clare; Backhaus, Jaclyn; Borinsky, Agnes; Arbery, Will; Ryan, Kate E. (2021-04-22). Unusual Stories, Unusually Told: 7 Contemporary American Plays from Clubbed Thumb: U.S. Drag; Slavey; Dot; Baby Screams Miracle; Men on Boats; Of Government; Plano. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 301. ISBN   978-1-350-19421-2.
  6. 1 2 "Review: A Shaggy Fish Story With a Bounty of Questing Heroines (Published 2017)". 2017-06-09. Archived from the original on 2022-06-28. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  7. 1 2 SASHA MASHA | Kirkus Reviews.
  8. 1 2 Mason, Derritt; Matos, Angel Daniel; Slater, Katharine (2025). "The 2025 Francelia Butler Lecture: Curtains, Blinds, and Closet Doors". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 50 (1): 5–38. doi:10.1353/chq.2025.a978113. ISSN   1553-1201.
  9. ↑ Palm, Kiri (2020). "Sasha Masha by Agnes Borinsky". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 74 (3): 122–123. doi:10.1353/bcc.2020.0735. ISSN   1558-6766.
  10. ↑ Bent, Eliza (2020-12-01). "I Want You in My Zoom. | EBSCOhost". openurl.ebsco.com. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  11. 1 2 Feldman, Adam. "A Song of Songs | Theater in New York". Time Out New York. Archived from the original on 2022-08-11. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  12. ↑ "Jeremy O. Harris and Bushwick Starr to Present A Song of Songs". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2024-10-06. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  13. 1 2 "Review: 'A Song of Songs' Makes a Sacrament of Remembrance (Published 2022)". 2022-03-13. Archived from the original on 2024-11-22. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  14. 1 2 Rabinowitz, Chloe. "World Premiere of Agnes Borinsky's THE TREES to be Presented at Playwrights Horizons in February". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  15. ↑ "Crystal Dickinson, Max Gordon Moore, Ray Anthony Thomas, More to Star in Agnes Borinsky's The Trees". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2025-06-12. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  16. ↑ "'Downstate' and 'Catch as Catch Can' in Playwrights Horizons New Season". 2022-04-04. Archived from the original on 2022-04-04. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  17. 1 2 Dziemianowicz, Joe (2023-03-05). "'The Trees' review — aimless new play doesn't ground itself". New York Theatre Guide. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  18. ↑ "If You Took Root, Who Would Tend the Soil? Review of "The Trees"". www.thebody.com. Archived from the original on 2023-03-08. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  19. ↑ "Review: Mining a Whimsical Absurdist Vein in 'The Trees'". 2023-03-06. Archived from the original on 2023-03-06. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  20. 1 2 Barclay, Kari (2024). "Burning Hope: Staging Queer Ecology in a Time of Wildfire". New Theatre Quarterly. 40 (4): 372–386. doi:10.1017/S0266464X24000320. ISSN   0266-464X.
  21. ↑ Oswald, Sylvan (2023). "Towards a Trans Theatre". The Methuen Drama Handbook of Gender and Theatre: 475–490. doi:10.5040/9781350123205.ch-026. ISBN   978-1-350-12320-5.
  22. ↑ Anderson, Porter (2021-03-15). "The US-Based Lambda Literary Awards Program Names Its 2021 Finalists". Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  23. ↑ "Playwright Interview: Agnes Borinsky". www.playwrightshorizons.org. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  24. ↑ Borinsky, Agnes. "Agnes Borinsky". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
  25. ↑ Borinsky, Agnes (2020-11-10). Sasha Masha. Macmillan + ORM. ISBN   978-0-374-31081-3.
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