About this episode

Jacob Ming-Trent shares his journey from a challenging childhood to becoming an acclaimed performer and playwright.

In this episode of The Truth In This Art, the guest is Jacob Ming-Trent! About Jacob Ming-Trent: Acclaimed performer, playwright, and one of American Theater's people to watch. A celebrated artist bringing his solo play, How Shakespeare Saved My Life , to Washington, DC's Folger Theater, and later to The Public Theater in New York with Red Bull producing. In our conversation, Ming-Trent walks through his journey from a rough childhood in an abusive home to moving to New York at seventeen—having been homeless the previous year and recently dropped out of high school. He recalls the pivotal moment Shakespeare entered his life: at six years old, his father, an English major, mentioned the Bard alongside Amiri Baraka . Years later, he accidentally walked into the wrong classroom and was asked to read a Shakespeare speech. "It felt like home to me," he says. "The words were big enough to give context to my emotions that were inside." He digs into the origins of How Shakespeare Saved My Life , a play that poured out of him unexpectedly while working on a different project. The solo show follows a kid with a tough childhood who discovers Shakespeare and tries to use it to navigate his…

People in this episode

Host: Rob Lee

Guest: Jacob Ming-Trent

Topics covered

• theater
• performance
• personal journey
• Shakespeare
• artistic expression

Keywords

• Jacob Ming-Trent
• theater
• Shakespeare
• How Shakespeare Saved My Life
• performance
• art

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Folger Theater, The Public Theater

Books & works: How Shakespeare Saved My Life

Places: Washington, DC, New York

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