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Jacob Juntunen

Southern Illinois University, Theater, Faculty Member

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Jacob Juntunen heads the Playwriting MFA and PhD programs at Southern Illinois University (SIU). He is the author of Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical Palatable (Routledge 2016), and his plays are for those “who want to leave the theatre changed and moved,” as one Chicago critic described. His current book project demonstrates artistic resistance to the genocidal discourse of the Nazi and Soviet regimes, particularly examining the theatre of Polish auteur Tadeusz Kantor. His reviews and articles have been published in Theatre Journal, European Theatre Journal, AngloSaxon Studies, Peace History, HowlRound.com, TheTheatreTimes.com, and several anthologies. Jacob’s scholarship and playwriting have been supported by the Fulbright Program, the NEH, Krakow’s International Cultural Center, the Illinois Arts Council, SIU’s SEED Grant, and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. His plays have been produced or workshopped Off-Broadway, in Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Washington, DC, and across the U.S. and Europe.

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Teaching Documents by Jacob Juntunen

Jacob Juntunen Research Statement.pdf

All my scholarship and theatre creation focuses on issues of performance and social justice, part... more All my scholarship and theatre creation focuses on issues of performance and social justice, particularly on how performance can include or exclude those on the margins. I am currently examining the work of Polish theatre auteur Tadeusz Kantor and how his performing objects included the taboo topics of Holocaust history, sexual violence, and queer citizens in his representation of the Polish nation. This connects back to my first book's work on how mainstream AIDS theatre interacted with the media to help include gay men in the U.S. imaginary community. Additionally, my scholarly research influences my theatre creation, particularly in terms of formal innovation. Together, these strands of theatre scholarship and creation express my interest in how theatre helps define a nation's imagined community.

Playwriting Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy

Teaching students the ability to ask intelligent questions is, for me, as important as informing ... more Teaching students the ability to ask intelligent questions is, for me, as important as informing them of facts, for facts are often disproved, and knowledge regularly becomes outdated. The ability to question allows for new learning, and, as a result, this skill never loses applicability. Consequently, I generally open class by asking each student to briefly relate what he or she found interesting in the reading. This method serves not only as an icebreaker, but also as a compass, for it lets me gain a sense of the students' points of entry into the texts. It may compel me to adjust my lesson plan accordingly. Likewise, it helps the students articulate their interpretations. Requiring students to present opening statements not only persuades them to develop their own answers, it also encourages them to bring questions to the table.

Papers by Jacob Juntunen

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

Our Class by Tadeusz Słobodzianek

Theatre Journal, 2013

Normalization: The Laramie Project

<i>An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening</i> (review)

Theatre Journal, 2010

This design concept invited the audience to experience the unfolding action as a memory sequence ... more This design concept invited the audience to experience the unfolding action as a memory sequence along with Jones. Thompson’s use of direct address guided us deeper into this painful psychological terrain, for his rhetorical stance imposed a series of masks upon us, illuminating, in turn, how masks had been imposed upon Jones. When Jones tries to hide his growing anxiety over the natives’ insurrection, he brags to Smithers that he has traveled through the forest often. Thompson looked us in the eye when he referred to the forest, and we became the forest. He made eye contact again when he dismissed his fear that the “bush niggers” might catch him, and we became the bush niggers. Finally, in the slave-auction scene, when Jones imagined that he was being bought and sold, he stood on the auction block, towering over a throng of ghostly puppet slaves and masked dandies, and indicted us, rage and anguish etching his sonorous baritone: “What you all doin’, white folks? . . . Is you sellin’ me like dey uster befo’ de war?” This moment was acute, given that, on all three occasions that I attended the production, the audience was predominately white.

A Burglar of the Better Sort: Poems, Dramatic Works, Theoretical Writings

The Polish Review, Apr 1, 2023

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical Palatable

We Represent the Polish People": The United States Press's Portrayal of Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 Performances at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles

In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threat... more In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threatening and then carrying out a boycott of the Summer Olympic games to be held in Moscow in 1980. In summer of 1984, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc retaliated by boycotting the Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, citing security concerns. However, despite this ban placed on athletes, Polish theatre artist Tadeusz Kantor and his troupe the Cricot 2 theatre performed at the Olympic Arts Festival, heralded by the "Boston Globe" as the "biggest cultural event ever in the United States". 1 They were the only theatre artists from the boycotting countries to perform in the US regardless of their government's supposed concerns about security. Due to the political context, much US press coverage of the Cricot 2 performances used Kantor and his troupe as a synecdoche for the Polish citizenry. The US press positioned Kantor, and, hence, Polish citizens, in opposition to the communist regime. Though American papers mentioned the "emasculation of the Polish trade union Solidarity", 2 they nevertheless refused the narrative that the USSR. had successfully quelled resistance and alternatively insisted, by using Kantor as an example, that the Polish people still actively resisted communism.

War During Peacetime: Mainstream Theater, Mass Media, and the 1985 Premiere ofThe Normal Heart

Peace & Change, 2015

Many twentieth-century theater scholars declared contemporary mainstream theater drained of any p... more Many twentieth-century theater scholars declared contemporary mainstream theater drained of any political efficacy. To them, the financing of mainstream productions necessitated giving no offense to elite investors who tend to hold the dominant ideology. These scholars advocated relinquishing mainstream spaces to capitalists and creating a radical theater outside the spotlight. This essay argues, however, that only in mainstream venues can progressive ideologies be assimilated and disseminated. Examining the 1985 production of The Normal Heart proves this thesis and demonstrates the political vitality of U.S. mainstream theater. The big-budget and much-marketed production used its position of high visibility-particularly in newspapers-to support organizations fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in ways radical performances in marginal venues could not. This article is a gesture toward a larger theory about the political potential mainstream theater wields in its interpolation by the mass media. Mainstream theater can act as a negotiating force between emergent and dominant ideologies.

A Burglar of the Better Sort: Poems, Dramatic Works, Theoretical Writings

The Polish Review

Normalization: The Laramie Project

Review: The Newsletter of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, volume 15, issue 1

Contents include: Dramaturgical Debris, LMDA Conference 2004 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ha... more Contents include: Dramaturgical Debris, LMDA Conference 2004 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, The Production Notebooks Edited by Mark Bly: A Conversation between Danielle Mages Amato and D.J. Hopkins, Interviews with Past LMDA Presidents Alexis Greene and David Copelin, and LMDA Regional Updates Issue editors: D.J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr, Megan Monaghan, Madeleine Oldhamhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1030/thumbnail.jp

Mainstream Theatre, Mass Media, and the 1985 Premiere of The Normal Heart

" We will be citizens": new essays on gay and …, 2008

Page 41. Mainstream Theatre, Mass Media, and the 1985 Premiere of The Normal Heart Negotiating Fo... more

Profitable dissents: The mainstream theatre of Larry Kramer and Tony Kushner as a negotiating force between emergent and dominant ideologies

UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dis... more

Taking the Rural International

In March 2020, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU) went into lockdown. With the annu... more In March 2020, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU) went into lockdown. With the annual Big Muddy New Play Festival about to kick off—two productions entering tech and four full-length staged readings rehearsing—SIU's M.F.A. Playwriting Program had been left in the lurch. COVID-19 and the scramble to move courses online and to graduate our M.F.A.'s canceled the entire festival. A year later, still online, the SIU M.F.A. Playwriting new play festival did not meet this same fate. Based on twelve months of experimentation, the program was able to develop a streaming festival. Our 2021 new play festival on YouTube brought together more than forty artists across eight time zones to collaborate with our five graduate student playwrights. The international ensemble, represented in an interactive map (Fig. 1), showed how open-access software and streaming platforms could help students at our rural university transcend our limited geography.

We Represent the Polish People": The United States Press's Portrayal of Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 Performances at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles

In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threat... more In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threatening and then carrying out a boycott of the Summer Olympic games to be held in Moscow in 1980. In summer of 1984, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc retaliated by boycotting the Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, citing security concerns. However, despite this ban placed on athletes, Polish theatre artist Tadeusz Kantor and his troupe the Cricot 2 theatre performed at the Olympic Arts Festival, heralded by the “Boston Globe” as the “biggest cultural event ever in the United States”. They were the only theatre artists from the boycotting countries to perform in the US regardless of their government’s supposed concerns about security. Due to the political context, much US press coverage of the Cricot 2 performances used Kantor and his troupe as a synecdoche for the Polish citizenry. The US press positioned Kantor, and, hence, Polish citizens, in opposition to the communist regime. Though A...

Our Class by Tadeusz Słobodzianek

Theatre Journal, 2013

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

Jacob Juntunen Research Statement.pdf

All my scholarship and theatre creation focuses on issues of performance and social justice, part... more All my scholarship and theatre creation focuses on issues of performance and social justice, particularly on how performance can include or exclude those on the margins. I am currently examining the work of Polish theatre auteur Tadeusz Kantor and how his performing objects included the taboo topics of Holocaust history, sexual violence, and queer citizens in his representation of the Polish nation. This connects back to my first book's work on how mainstream AIDS theatre interacted with the media to help include gay men in the U.S. imaginary community. Additionally, my scholarly research influences my theatre creation, particularly in terms of formal innovation. Together, these strands of theatre scholarship and creation express my interest in how theatre helps define a nation's imagined community.

Playwriting Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy

Teaching students the ability to ask intelligent questions is, for me, as important as informing ... more Teaching students the ability to ask intelligent questions is, for me, as important as informing them of facts, for facts are often disproved, and knowledge regularly becomes outdated. The ability to question allows for new learning, and, as a result, this skill never loses applicability. Consequently, I generally open class by asking each student to briefly relate what he or she found interesting in the reading. This method serves not only as an icebreaker, but also as a compass, for it lets me gain a sense of the students' points of entry into the texts. It may compel me to adjust my lesson plan accordingly. Likewise, it helps the students articulate their interpretations. Requiring students to present opening statements not only persuades them to develop their own answers, it also encourages them to bring questions to the table.

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

Our Class by Tadeusz Słobodzianek

Theatre Journal, 2013

Normalization: The Laramie Project

<i>An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening</i> (review)

Theatre Journal, 2010

This design concept invited the audience to experience the unfolding action as a memory sequence ... more This design concept invited the audience to experience the unfolding action as a memory sequence along with Jones. Thompson’s use of direct address guided us deeper into this painful psychological terrain, for his rhetorical stance imposed a series of masks upon us, illuminating, in turn, how masks had been imposed upon Jones. When Jones tries to hide his growing anxiety over the natives’ insurrection, he brags to Smithers that he has traveled through the forest often. Thompson looked us in the eye when he referred to the forest, and we became the forest. He made eye contact again when he dismissed his fear that the “bush niggers” might catch him, and we became the bush niggers. Finally, in the slave-auction scene, when Jones imagined that he was being bought and sold, he stood on the auction block, towering over a throng of ghostly puppet slaves and masked dandies, and indicted us, rage and anguish etching his sonorous baritone: “What you all doin’, white folks? . . . Is you sellin’ me like dey uster befo’ de war?” This moment was acute, given that, on all three occasions that I attended the production, the audience was predominately white.

A Burglar of the Better Sort: Poems, Dramatic Works, Theoretical Writings

The Polish Review, Apr 1, 2023

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical Palatable

We Represent the Polish People": The United States Press's Portrayal of Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 Performances at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles

In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threat... more In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threatening and then carrying out a boycott of the Summer Olympic games to be held in Moscow in 1980. In summer of 1984, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc retaliated by boycotting the Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, citing security concerns. However, despite this ban placed on athletes, Polish theatre artist Tadeusz Kantor and his troupe the Cricot 2 theatre performed at the Olympic Arts Festival, heralded by the "Boston Globe" as the "biggest cultural event ever in the United States". 1 They were the only theatre artists from the boycotting countries to perform in the US regardless of their government's supposed concerns about security. Due to the political context, much US press coverage of the Cricot 2 performances used Kantor and his troupe as a synecdoche for the Polish citizenry. The US press positioned Kantor, and, hence, Polish citizens, in opposition to the communist regime. Though American papers mentioned the "emasculation of the Polish trade union Solidarity", 2 they nevertheless refused the narrative that the USSR. had successfully quelled resistance and alternatively insisted, by using Kantor as an example, that the Polish people still actively resisted communism.

War During Peacetime: Mainstream Theater, Mass Media, and the 1985 Premiere ofThe Normal Heart

Peace & Change, 2015

Many twentieth-century theater scholars declared contemporary mainstream theater drained of any p... more Many twentieth-century theater scholars declared contemporary mainstream theater drained of any political efficacy. To them, the financing of mainstream productions necessitated giving no offense to elite investors who tend to hold the dominant ideology. These scholars advocated relinquishing mainstream spaces to capitalists and creating a radical theater outside the spotlight. This essay argues, however, that only in mainstream venues can progressive ideologies be assimilated and disseminated. Examining the 1985 production of The Normal Heart proves this thesis and demonstrates the political vitality of U.S. mainstream theater. The big-budget and much-marketed production used its position of high visibility-particularly in newspapers-to support organizations fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in ways radical performances in marginal venues could not. This article is a gesture toward a larger theory about the political potential mainstream theater wields in its interpolation by the mass media. Mainstream theater can act as a negotiating force between emergent and dominant ideologies.

A Burglar of the Better Sort: Poems, Dramatic Works, Theoretical Writings

The Polish Review

Normalization: The Laramie Project

Review: The Newsletter of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, volume 15, issue 1

Contents include: Dramaturgical Debris, LMDA Conference 2004 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ha... more Contents include: Dramaturgical Debris, LMDA Conference 2004 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, The Production Notebooks Edited by Mark Bly: A Conversation between Danielle Mages Amato and D.J. Hopkins, Interviews with Past LMDA Presidents Alexis Greene and David Copelin, and LMDA Regional Updates Issue editors: D.J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr, Megan Monaghan, Madeleine Oldhamhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1030/thumbnail.jp

Mainstream Theatre, Mass Media, and the 1985 Premiere of The Normal Heart

" We will be citizens": new essays on gay and …, 2008

Page 41. Mainstream Theatre, Mass Media, and the 1985 Premiere of The Normal Heart Negotiating Fo... more

Profitable dissents: The mainstream theatre of Larry Kramer and Tony Kushner as a negotiating force between emergent and dominant ideologies

UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dis... more

Taking the Rural International

In March 2020, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU) went into lockdown. With the annu... more In March 2020, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU) went into lockdown. With the annual Big Muddy New Play Festival about to kick off—two productions entering tech and four full-length staged readings rehearsing—SIU's M.F.A. Playwriting Program had been left in the lurch. COVID-19 and the scramble to move courses online and to graduate our M.F.A.'s canceled the entire festival. A year later, still online, the SIU M.F.A. Playwriting new play festival did not meet this same fate. Based on twelve months of experimentation, the program was able to develop a streaming festival. Our 2021 new play festival on YouTube brought together more than forty artists across eight time zones to collaborate with our five graduate student playwrights. The international ensemble, represented in an interactive map (Fig. 1), showed how open-access software and streaming platforms could help students at our rural university transcend our limited geography.

We Represent the Polish People": The United States Press's Portrayal of Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 Performances at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles

In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threat... more In 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, US President Carter responded by threatening and then carrying out a boycott of the Summer Olympic games to be held in Moscow in 1980. In summer of 1984, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc retaliated by boycotting the Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, citing security concerns. However, despite this ban placed on athletes, Polish theatre artist Tadeusz Kantor and his troupe the Cricot 2 theatre performed at the Olympic Arts Festival, heralded by the “Boston Globe” as the “biggest cultural event ever in the United States”. They were the only theatre artists from the boycotting countries to perform in the US regardless of their government’s supposed concerns about security. Due to the political context, much US press coverage of the Cricot 2 performances used Kantor and his troupe as a synecdoche for the Polish citizenry. The US press positioned Kantor, and, hence, Polish citizens, in opposition to the communist regime. Though A...

Our Class by Tadeusz Słobodzianek

Theatre Journal, 2013

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

ULICA 29: Międzynarodowy Festiwal Teatrów Ulicznych [Street 29: International Festival of Street Theatres] by Teatr KTO

Theatre Journal, 2016

Profitable dissents: The mainstream theatre of Larry Kramer and Tony Kushner as a negotiating force between emergent and dominant ideologies

UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dis... more

We Represent the Polish People": The United States Press's Portrayal of Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 Performances at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles

Theatre Journal: Review, Theatre J's Our Class

An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening (review)

Theatre Journal, 2010

This fall, Chicago-based Theater Oobleck remounted co-founder Mickle Maher's An Apology for ... more

Juntunen Review Chorus of Orphans: A Theatre Séance by Poland's Teatr KTO, Kraków

A review of _Chorus of Orphans_ by Kraków's Teatr KTO, Jerzy Zoń, artistic director.

Juntunen ULICA 29 Review

A review of the 29th annual street theatre festival in Kraków, Poland.