Playwright Jeff Cohen received a 2002 Drama Desk Award for The Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen, a 10-week USO-style show after 9/11 to “entertain the troops,” the rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero. The Canteen was a featured story on virtually every network news broadcast in the US and around the world. Cohen became known for his groundbreaking work adapting classic plays to a contemporary American milieu. He was featured, alongside acclaimed director Ivo Van Hove and seminal avant-garde theater company The Wooster Group in a 2000 New York Times Arts & Leisure feature “Reworking The Classics of Modern Realism.” His work included re-imaginings of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” set in The Hamptons which the New York Times called “Bold and exciting” the New York Post called “A...
Playwright Jeff Cohen received a 2002 Drama Desk Award for The Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen, a 10-week USO-style show after 9/11 to “entertain the troops,” the rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero. The Canteen was a featured story on virtually every network news broadcast in the US and around the world. Cohen became known for his groundbreaking work adapting classic plays to a contemporary American milieu. He was featured, alongside acclaimed director Ivo Van Hove and seminal avant-garde theater company The Wooster Group in a 2000 New York Times Arts & Leisure feature “Reworking The Classics of Modern Realism.” His work included re-imaginings of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” set in The Hamptons which the New York Times called “Bold and exciting” the New York Post called “A production of ‘The Seagull’ which speaks to me more than any other in my lifetime,” and The Daily News called “So truthful that even Chekhov, were he around to see it, would be inclined to agree that sometimes there are higher theatrical values than faithfulness to the author's words.” The Hamptons Seagull featured the New York stage debut of Laura Linney. He set Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” in West Virginia re-titling it “Uncle Jack.” His Americanized version of Euripides “Orestes” re-titled “Orestes: I Murdered My Mother” featured the New York stage debut of Kathryn Hahn, his setting of Buchner’s “Woyzeck” on a Southern Army base in the 1960s was re-titled “Whoa-Jack!” and featuring the New York stage debut of Michael Ealy and he adapted Moliere’s “Tartuffe” to 1920s Manhattan, a production the New York Times called “A cockamamie Marx Brothers sprint” and about which The Nation Magazine said: “When I spoke to Moliere later in a séance he assured me he hadn’t seen a better production of ‘Tartuffe’ in ages.” Mr. Cohen’s original plays include “Men Of Clay” which was a Time Out New York Critic’s Pick and was selected Best New Play of 2005 by the Baltimore Sun, “The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller” which was a New York Times and Time Out New York Critic’s Pick and “The Soap Myth” which Holocaust scholars consider the most important theatrical work about Holocaust denial. “The Soap Myth” toured the United States with casts that included Ed Asner, Richard Dreyfuss, Jayne Atkinson, Tovah Feldshuh, Bob Gunton, Harris Yulin, John Rubinstein and Johanna Day. It has been performed at such major theaters as Lincoln Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Kirk Douglas Theater (LA), The Arsht Center (Miami), Sarasota Opera House, the Pasadena Playhouse, The Alliance Theater (Atlanta) the Roundabout Theater (NYC) and The Parker Playhouse (Ft. Lauderdale). PBS filmed a “concert reading” performance of “The Soap Myth” featuring Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh for broadcast on WNET’s All Arts channel.
Mr. Cohen’s autobiographical play “SQUEAKY” is a poignant comedy about end-of-life issues with the playwright’s dad Stan “Squeaky” Cohen. Guild Hall (East Hampton, NY) presented a zoom reading of “SQUEAKY” featuring an award-winning cast that included Harris Yulin, Marc Kudisch, Ben Shenkman, LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Jessica Hecht. The zoom was directed by Academy Award nominee Bob Balaban.
Mr. Cohen’s play “The Righteous” is the unknown story of Eduard Schulte, a member of Hitler’s high command who placed himself and his family in grave danger by warning the world of the final solution in August, 1942. In 1988 he was posthumously honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, a Righteous Gentile. “The Righteous” was presented as a zoom reading by New York’s Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center with an award-winning cast that included Johanna Day, Jessica Hecht, Frank Wood, Richard Kind, Denis O’Hare, Peter Jacobson, Dan Jenkins and David Greenspan.
Mr. Cohen’s work has been included in the annual Ten Best lists of many major media publications including The New York Times, Time Magazine, New York Magazine, The Boston Globe, The LA Times, The New Yorker, The New York Post, The New York Daily News, The Village Voice, The Baltimore Sun, The Star-Ledger and many others. His work has been the recipient of such awards as the Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Lucille Lortel, Drama League, Obie and AUDELCO.