Jess Eichen
is a playwright, director, and performer
I'm a current Dramatic Writing BFA Major at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a concentration in screenwriting. I'm from Philadelphia, PA, and as a child, spent every chance I got to get onstage, and I bring both the writer and the actor in me to every project I do. I love stories that are radically human, darkly funny, uncomfortably messy, and patiently searching.
When I'm not writing plays, I'm writing and performing in sketch comedy shows with the comedy troupe Hammerkatz. We've done shows in venues around NYC like the Under St. Marks Theater and toured at Yale, and we'll do upcoming tours at Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and around Los Angeles. I have a special love for physical theatre, and in sketch, I try to take physical comedy to its extreme.
In 2024 I studied Meisner acting technique at the William Esper Studio. Combined with Linklater vocal technique and Williamson movement technique, I learned how to connect my spirit, energy, body, voice, and emotional experience to become a holistic actor. I take these skills to directing actors as well - digging up the actor's thoughtless instincts and building a spontaneous emotional connection to the text. I also studied acting and movement techniques, devising, and text analysis at the Wolf Performing Arts Center for four years, with a focus on physical theater and methods for creating movement.
photo credit: Francesca Dimiceli
projects
THE JACKAL
stage play -- writer and director
A play about queerness, masculinity, addiction, brotherly love, marriage, shame, memory, Nietzsche, and Egyptian mythology.In a rehab facility tucked deep in the mountains of Oregon, a middle-aged man named David is struggling to overcome a decade-long opiate addiction. Once a nationally ranked powerlifter, he's now nursing a chronic injury and in the care of his younger wife Mindy. When he gets assigned to mentor the wiry and reclusive teenager Striker, David struggles to get him to open up. Striker keeps to himself, refusing to participate in therapy, and keeps mumbling about the "Animal Man" - an imaginary monster who threatens Striker when he does something bad.
Reading:
Broke People Play Festival Fall 2024
Bridge Productions Summer Showcase 2024
photo credit @krish_dev.creations
ANGELS THAT DANCE BETWEEN TONGUES
stage play -- director and composer
A gay space opera, with reference to Boltzmann and Descartes.Em, a lonely consciousness, lives in an empty hotel room in an uninhabited dimension. He doesn't know any life outside of his one room, in which he has been trapped for his entire million-year existence.
Until, a young man named Abram gives Em the ability to travel to different dimensions and let him explore the multiverse. Em, enraptured with the beauty of the multiverse but unable to touch anything or anyone while he is outside his home, still feels like something is missing. And Abram, the beautiful, strapping man who introduced him to the world, is hiding some devastating secrets about who - and what - both of them are.
Produced by Broke People Play Festival in association with New York University
photo credit @kate.anne.woo
five movements written for the production
composed, produced, and mixed by Jess:
YEAR OF THE GOAT
stage play -- writer and director
A Southern Gothic play about God, evil, mercy, sex, femininity, and truth, set against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution.It's 1899. A pious pastor Theo lives a quiet life in Charleston with his wife Mabel, making forgiveness his life's work, working to help even the widowed prostitute Molly living on the street corner confess her wrongs. Until, a mysterious traveller only referring to himself as "Lyman" wanders through town, asking for help from a religious man. Carrying with him stories from more debaucherous parts of the world, he asks Theo to teach him how to cleanse his sins and find God. As the winter weeks leading up to the New Year go on, Lyman starts putting himself between Theo and Mabel, and Theo starts to question what this otherworldly man's true motives are.
Reading:
Broke People Play Festival Spring 2024
HAMMERKATZ
sketch comedy -- writer and performer
A touring sketch comedy group where all performers are also writers! We write an original show every single month, and sometimes take our show on the road.
Venues:
University of Chicago
Northwestern University
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner NYC
Under St. Marks Theatre
Yale University
SINCERELY, YOUR UNGRATEFUL DAUGHTER
short film -- co-director and casting director
Upcoming - Currently in post-production!
A new film written by Riel Lewis and produced by Riel Lewis and Abby Jenkins.
