Jess Barbagallo

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Jess Barbagallo (born c. 1984) [1] is an American transgender [2] writer, director, and performer based in New York City.

Contents

Biography

Barbagallo began writing plays while in high school, studied acting at a conservatory, and then studied playwriting in college. [2] He has an MFA from Brooklyn College, [3] where he won the Hiram Brown Playwriting Award in 2008 and 2009. [4] He has described himself as being uncomfortable with his assigned gender "from puberty" and began to present as male in college. [2]

He was a co-founder of the theater collective The Dyke Division of the Two-Headed Calf, which created and staged Room for Cream, a serial play that unfolds across multiple episodes in the manner of a soap opera, a genre it "embraces and critiques". The first three seasons from 2008 to 2010 comprised 24 episodes, with a fourth season of three episodes was staged at the New Museum in 2017. [5] [6] He was a member of the Writer Director Lab at Soho Rep in 2009/10 [7] and in 2011/12 was a fellow in the mentorship program at Queer Arts. [8]

He was a 2013 MacDowell Colony Fellow. [9] In 2015, Barbagallo was selected to participate in the Persona Seminar think tank at the New Museum. [10] He was invited to join the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writer’s Group for 2016/17. [11]

During the COVID 19 pandemic, Barbagallo co-authored, co-produced, and acted in two videos (The Puzzlers and The Puzzlers 2: Black Box) as part of the Exponential Festival, based on Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing. In the New York Times , Laura Collins-Hughes called them "zestfully odd and playful" with "heightened, deadpan loopiness that elicits belly laughs". [12] [13]

In March 2023, he co-started in Agnes Borinsky's The Trees at Playwrights Horizons. [14]

In 2025, Barbagallo received a Special Citation Obie Award for directing Snatch Adams & Tainty McCracken Present It's That Time of the Month, which played in New York from October to December 2023. [15] [16]

As an actor Barbagallo has played both men and characters of unspecified gender, and he believes that cis roles should be open to trans performers. At the same time, he says that only trans actors should play trans characters, because of the history of excluding trans performers from all roles. Rather than ignoring gender categories, he believes the theater can contribute to cultural and social transformation, saying in 2016 that "Art is supposed to change the world, and our actions can do that via these representations." [17]

Barbagallo has taught theater and writing as a guest artist and adjunct lecturer at Duke University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Brooklyn College, the Vermont Young Playwright’s Festival and The O’Neill Center.

Filmography

Film

YearTitleRole
2015Christmas on Earth/Joe Ranono's Yuletide Log and Other FruitcakesJoe Ranono

Television

YearTitleEpisodeRole
2021 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit "Return of the Prodigal Son"Sacha Lenski
2012Gay's Anatomy3 episodesDyque van der Goose

Radio

YearTitleRole
2021 Marvel's Wastelanders: Hawkeye Max

Theater

YearTitleRole
2016O, EarthGeorge [18]
2016My Old Man (and Other Stories)author, director [19]
2017Orange JuliusNut [20]
2018 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and TwoYann Fredericks [21]
2023TreesDavid [22]

Writing

His writing has been published by Artforum, Howlround, Bomb Blog, New York Live Arts Blog: Context Notes, Brooklyn Rail and 53rd State Press.

References

  1. Barbagallo, Jess (October 4, 2022). "Jess Barbagallo by Alexis Clements". BOMB (Interview). Interviewed by Alexis Clements. I'm thirty-eight now
  2. 1 2 3 Soliski, Alexis (November 9, 2016). "Transgender Playwrights: 'We Should Get to Tell Our Own Stories First'". New York Times. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  3. Barbagallo, Jess (July 16, 2012). "Queering Art, Mentorship: Jess Barbagallo & Stacy Szymaszek". BOMB Magazine . Archived from the original on September 21, 2017. Retrieved July 10, 2016.
  4. "Jesse Barbagallo". Howlround Theatre Commons. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  5. "Performance: The Dyke Division of the Two-Headed Calf: Room For Cream". New Museum. October 28, 2017. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  6. Steinberg, Allison (January 22, 2009). "Chicks in a box: La MaMa makes room for a live lesbian soap's "box set."". Time Out . Archived from the original on August 27, 2018. Retrieved July 10, 2016.
  7. "Writer Director Lab". Soho Rep. Retrieved August 5, 2025. Jess Barbagallo & Meghan Finn: I'll Meet You in Tijuana
  8. "Fellows & Mentors". Queer Art. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  9. "Jess Barbagallo". MacDowell Colony. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  10. "PERSONA New Museum Seminars: (Temporary) Collections of Ideas Consortium". New Museum . December 14, 2015. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  11. "Meet the 24/25 Early Career Writers Group". Clubbed Thumb. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  12. Collins-Hughes, Laura (January 25, 2022). "When Theatermakers Long for the Stage, Playfully". New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  13. "The Puzzlers + The Puzzlers 2: Black Box". Exponential Festival. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  14. Miller, Deb (March 5, 2023). "An absurdist struggle for roots, community, and stability in Off-Broadway's 'The Trees' at Playwrights Horizons". DC Theater Arts. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  15. "The 68th Obie Award Winners". American Theatre Wing. February 1, 2025. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  16. Kumar, Naveen (November 7, 2023). "'Snatch Adams' Review: Gross-Out Humor for Not-So-Easily-Shocked Liberals". New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  17. Tran, Diep (February 4, 2016). "Trending Now: The Trans* Experience". American Theatre . Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  18. Collins-Hughes, Laura (February 1, 2016). "Review: 'O Earth,' a Riff on 'Our Town'". New York Times. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  19. Barbagallo, Jess (October 1, 2016). "Interview with Jess Barbagallo, the creator of 'My Old Man (and Other Stories)'". AXS (Interview). Interviewed by Megan Meehan. Archived from the original on August 29, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2018.
  20. Collins-Hughes, Laura (January 22, 2017). "Review: An 'Orange Julius' Bond Is Complicated". New York Times. Retrieved August 4, 2025. the terrific Mr. Barbagallo
  21. Gerard, Jeremy (August 2, 2017). "'Harry Potter And The Cursed Child' Broadway Cast Announced". Deadline. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  22. Vincentelli, Elizabeth (March 5, 2023). "Review: Mining a Whimsical Absurdist Vein in 'The Trees'". New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2025.