Jan Balakian

Jan Balakian

April 23-27, 2022 Kean University's workshop reading of Dreams on Fire, by Kean students in our new projection space in The Library. 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, NJ 07083
www.kean.edu

Jan Balakian (Cornell Ph.D., Brown M.A.T., Bucknell B.A. with honors) teaches literature and writing at Kean University. She has published essays about American Drama (Cambridge UP, Palgrave, Penn State...
April 23-27, 2022 Kean University's workshop reading of Dreams on Fire, by Kean students in our new projection space in The Library. 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, NJ 07083
www.kean.edu

Jan Balakian (Cornell Ph.D., Brown M.A.T., Bucknell B.A. with honors) teaches literature and writing at Kean University. She has published essays about American Drama (Cambridge UP, Palgrave, Penn State), interviews with Arthur Miller and Wendy Wasserstein, a cultural studies book about the plays of Wasserstein(Applause), written two prize-winning screenplays, www.nytimes.com/2001/08/05/nyregion/professor, and hosted the first international conference at Kean, “Why American Plays Matter,” funded by the NJ Council for the Humanities.

Jan’s 1989 student play won Cornell’s playwriting prize and contained the seeds for Dreams on Fire, written with Gran’s inspection ticket by her side. Dreams is the first American play to tell the story of The Armenian Genocide and the transmission of trauma in the context of college students set before the 2016 election. Jan will do whatever work is required to bring this story to production. Eric Hollander, M.D. is the consulting neuroscientist for the play.

Plays

  • DREAMS ON FIRE by Jan Balakian
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: Mental Health, Armenian Genocide + 1 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama, political, romantic comedy
    Keyword: Mental Health, Armenian Genocide, Epigenetics
    It’s 2016 spring exam week, and students are rallying about the upcoming election, while an Armenian-American NJ college student is having a nervous breakdown. On his journey to recovery with his grandmother, and later, a classmate, he discovers the connection between his condition and the twentieth century’s first genocide—The Armenian Genocide. In its exploration of the transmission of trauma across...
    It’s 2016 spring exam week, and students are rallying about the upcoming election, while an Armenian-American NJ college student is having a nervous breakdown. On his journey to recovery with his grandmother, and later, a classmate, he discovers the connection between his condition and the twentieth century’s first genocide—The Armenian Genocide. In its exploration of the transmission of trauma across generations, and the impact of the past on the present, the play is both universal and timely.

    Projections from 1915, The Palisades of NJ, Arshile Gorky, Facing History's text, NY Times Headlines, The Turkish Coup of 2016 are part of the production, along with the melancholy sound of the dudk (Armenian wind instrument), and Katie Melua's Dreams on Fire sung by Aram.