JAMES SCRUGGS: playwright

James Scruggs (playwright) was awarded a grant from Franklin Furnace in August of 2002. In March 2003 he became a resident artist at HERE Arts Center. Disposable Men his solo performance piece was originally produced by HERE. He received a NJSCA grant for artistic excellence in 2005. In September of 2005 He was awarded the first ever NY IT Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for Disposable Men, a performance piece juxtaposing images from Hollywood monster movies with the harsh reality of the historical treatment of black men in America. It went on to tour four cities, to Seven Stages in Atlanta, Perishable in Providence, New World Theater in Amherst, and The Painted Bride in Philadelphia. In December 2006 he was a featured American Playwright in a chapter contrasting his work with Suzan-Lori Parks called Interrogating America Through Theater And Performance, a textbook. He premiered his mixed media play (RUS)H, another collaboration with Kristin Marting and HERE in 2008 at 3LD which explored the dark world of a male sex-worker desperately striving to prey upon a married man, told with video, tango and salsa. In 2010 he had a 3-week residency at The Baryshnikov Arts Center and a work in progress showing at Dixon Place of Touchscape, a series of monologs of men speaking intimately about their relationship with touch. Tickets To Manhood a work about how men irresponsibly mature into men was commissioned and performed at Dixon Place for three weeks in July 2011. From 2012 – 2013 he was a resident artist at Tribeca Arts Center Residency Program as a playwright, and completed and had a staged reading of Deepest Man in 2012. In 2013 he performed a staged reading of his solo piece A Voluptuary Life, a piece about aging and self worth. He has a BFA in Film from School of Visual Arts.