About Jess
Jess Kaufman (she/her) is a playwright, dramaturg, producer and all-around theater artist making thoughtful, playful, ambitious theater for families. Her work invites young people and families to cross boundaries, in theaters and site-specific performance spaces. Her research invites artists and academics to consider the ways young people make meaning, particularly when they are invited to interact. As a queer, Jewish artist, she is particularly interested in the intersection of social justice and identity. As an actor, Jess has appeared Off-Broadway, on U.S. National Tours and regional theatres, and experimental venues in New York City and London. Jess has been a New Victory Theater LabWorks Artist, a New York Foundation for the Arts "Emerging Arts Leader", and her work has received grant funding from the New York City Artist Corps, Alliance of Resident Theatres New York, the Uptown Manhattan Empowerment Zone, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Ramapo Catskills Library System, and Arts Council England.
A a practitioner-researcher, Jess works at the intersection of young audiences, embodiment and participation in reception dramaturgy, and site-specificity. She is a frequent guest lecturer and conference presenter, with credits including: Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, Creative Interruptions London, NYU Forum on Educational Theatre, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, Theater and Dance for the Very Young Conference, TYA/USA, the International Young Audiences Research Network Conference, and the 2024 ASSITEJ World Congress. Her writing has been published in ArtsPraxis and Theatre and Performance Design, and she co-edited Embodied Cognition, Acting and Performance (Routledge, 2017). She is on the theater faculty at Lucy Moses School and teaches theater at the Catskill Art Space.
MA Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London); BFA University of Miami; Certificate, Moscow Art Theatre (Russia); Clown School, New York Goofs.
Jess lives in the Catskills with her wife, two tabby cats, and a wide variety of plants.