Jordan Harrison

Jordan Harrison is an American playwright. He grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His play Marjorie Prime was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Harrison received a B.A. from Stanford University in 1999 and an M.F.A. from Brown University, where he studied with Paula Vogel. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Shortly after graduating from Brown, his play Kid-Simple, which he wrote while in grad school, was produced at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2004. The Actors Theatre of Louisville subsequently premiered his plays Act a Lady (2006) and Maple and Vine, both of which were directed by Anne Kauffman, and The Grown-Up, which was directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. Act a Lady, after being developed at the PlayPenn New Play Conference in 2005, was subsequently produced in several venues including the New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco in April 2009.

The Museum Play had workshops at Brown University (2003), readings at Playwrights Horizons (2003) and Signature Theatre Company (2005) and a production at Red Eye Theatre, Minneapolis (2004). Finn in the Underworld premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California, in 2005, directed by Les Waters.

His Off-Broadway plays include Doris to Darlene (2007) and Maple and Vine at Playwrights Horizons (2011), Amazons and their Men (2008) by Clubbed Thumb at the Ohio Theatre and Futura (2010) at National Asian American Theater Company.

He wrote the book for a children’s musical, The Flea and the Professor, with music composed by Richard Gray and lyrics by Harrison and Gray. The musical was commissioned by the Virginia and Harvey Kimmel Arts Education Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation and received an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. It was performed by the Arden Theatre Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May to June 2011, directed by Anne Kauffman. Suprema is a musical, with music and lyrics by Daniel Zaitchik and book and lyrics by Harrison. The musical had a reading at Ars Nova in May 2012, directed by Leigh Silverman. The musical was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s 2011 Music Theatre Conference.

The Amateurs premiered Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre on February 8, 2018, in previews and closed on March 29, 2018. Directed by Oliver Butler the play featured Kyle Beltran, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Michael Cyril Creighton, Greg Keller, Jennifer Kim and Thomas Jay Ryan. The play was nominated for the 2018 Off Broadway Alliance Award, Best New Play and the 2018 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play (Bernstine).

His play Log Cabin premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on June 1, 2018, in previews, officially on June 25. The play involves a tight-knit group of gays and lesbians and is directed by Pam MacKinnon with Jesse Tyler Ferguson starring.

Harrison writes for the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black.