PHILADELPHIA - Playwright James Ijames has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his queer adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The play will have its New York premiere this spring at the Public Theater. Ijames will receive a prize of $15,000 for his Pulitzer Prize.
James Ijames Won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The award is given to an American playwright for a work that reflects the diversity of American life. The play premiered as a film at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia in spring 2021. It is now undergoing previews at the Public Theater, of which Ijames is co-artistic director.
In "Fat Ham," Ijames has created an all-star cast, including a gay college student who is the protagonist. The play combines elements of Shakespeare's Hamlet with the modern life of a queer Black man living in a Southern college. It features a ghost who demands that Juicy avenge his dead father's murder. The play is about love and loss and a complex relationship between two people.
