MARK JACKSON
THEATER MAKING ARCHIVE
"Jackson has long been one of the Bay Area’s most interesting theater makers – intelligent, audacious, boundary pushing and always, always interesting. He tends to merge varying styles of theater, often very physical, but always in service of storytelling and emotion. His shows, especially the ones he writes and directs, can’t be described as easy, but there’s always depth, invention and sharp stagecraft…" THEATERDOGS.NET
"MVP: Mark Jackson – triple-threat director-playwright-performer… Every show, since his dynamic early Io Princess of Argos and sweeping, bold The Death of Meyerhold, is at least exhilarating in its intellectual challenges, sharp visual images and expressive physical acting, and every year at least one of his shows makes my Top 20 list." San Francisco Chronicle
"Playwright/director Mark Jackson has made his name as a first-class theatrical provocateur. Gutsy showmanship, brainy literary instincts, and laser-sharp satire mark his canon, from The Death of Meyerhold and American $uicide, to Faust Pt1 and Metamorphosis." San Jose Mercury News
“Anyone familiar with the work of playwright and director Mark Jackson can attest that he’s an unparalleled talent in the Bay Area theater scene, and possibly in the nation at large.” East Bay Express
“The director, playwright, educator and actor is that rare kind of theatre artist who constantly strives to defy expectations.” American Theatre Magazine
“From reimagined Shakespeare to adaptations of under-produced Russian dramas, Jackson's work is invariably characterized by his respect for and understanding of the universal nature of human emotion, regardless of location or century, as well as an intensely verbal style of playwriting and often aggressively physical staging.” San Francisco Bay Guardian
“Even in a region with many excellent directors, Jackson’s smart, intensely physical work stands out. His plays are notable for their electricity and the elegant intelligence of his writing and staging. Jackson draws out the best in his collaborators and then forges their contributions into a coherent and affecting whole.” San Francisco Magazine
“As acclaimed as he is for original works such as Shotgun Players’ The Death of Meyerhold and The Forest War, what’s particularly fascinating about writer-director Mark Jackson’s work is his treatment of classic texts, from inventive stagings of Shakespeare’s Macbeth for Shotgun and Strindberg’s Miss Julie at Aurora to dizzying choreography-oriented deconstructions such as JULIET at San Francisco State University and his Three Sisters riff Yes Yes to Moscow at the San Francisco International Arts Festival. Somewhere in between are his adaptations, which bear the unmistakable mark of his strong visual and highly stylized approach while remaining much more of a conversation with the original work than a reinvention of it.” Sam Hurwitt, editor of Theatre Bay Area magazine
