Jacob Perkins is a writer, actor, and clinical mental health counselor/researcher. His work, artistically and clinically, investigates the intersection of queer/trans identities with religious/spiritual trauma, substance use, and Existential concerns. His plays include The Dinosaurs (Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb), The Gold Room (iamaslowtide/HERE Arts Center), the Home Church Play triptych (Ars Nova, Page 73/Yale, Soho Rep., Williamstown Theatre Festival), Restaurant in D Major (Two Headed Rep), and The Interview. He was a winner of the 2020 Biennial Commission from Clubbed Thumb, the inaugural recipient of the DVRF/O’Henry Emerging Playwright Award, and is an alumnus of Ars Nova’s Play Group, Soho Rep.’s Writer/Director Lab, and Page 73’s Summer Residency at Yale. As an actor, he has appeared in new works by Agnes Borinsky, Dan Giles, and Boo Killebrew, among many others. Jacob is in his final year of graduate study at Virginia Tech, where he was named a 2024/2025 National Board of Certified Counselors’ Minority Fellow in Addictions Counseling. His current research is focused on factors that sustain recovery from substance use disorders for LGBTQ+ Appalachian individuals.
Les Waters is a Tony nominated and multi Obie Award winning director. Previous PH shows include The Christians and The Thin Place. Most recent NY credits are Dana H (Broadway), Grief Camp (Atlantic Theatre), and the revival of Eurydice (Signature). His work has been seen on Broadway, Off Broadway and many regional theaters.
Photo by Sarah Ruhl.
Every week at the same time, in the same place, a group of women share their stories of recovery. As weeks slip into years and decades spin into eternity, the women keep coming back amidst an ever-shifting, unfamiliar world. Jacob Perkins’ The Dinosaurs is a piercingly funny, loving ode to the infinite, innately human battle between holding on and letting go.
Artwork by Molly Miller.
Special thanks to the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation and the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater for supporting this production.
Cast
Elizabeth Marvel
April Matthis
Maria Elena Ramirez
Mallory Portnoy
Kathleen Chalfant
Keilly McQuail
Obie Award winner. Playwrights Horizons: Iowa. Off-Broadway: Fondly, Colette Richland; On the Levee; Lear; The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928). Other New York theater: Hollow Roots; I Bought a Bunker, B**** ; Good Heif; Dead City; Anna Bella Eema. Regional: A Streetcar Named Desire, Rust, Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land, Home.
Playwrights Horizons: Cowboy Pictures, Jealousy, Mississippi Moonshine, Born Yesterday, Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Broadway: Angels in America (Tony nom.), Racing Demon. Other Off-Broadway: Wit (Drama Desk, Obie, Outer Critics, Lucille Lortel Awards, MCC); Henry V (Callaway Award, The Public); Red Dog Howls, Far Away (NYTW); Talking Heads, Stories Left to Tell (Minetta Lane); Savannah Bay (CSC). Film: Isn’t it Delicious, Five Corners, Duplicity. TV: “The Affair,” “House of Cards,” “The Guardian.”
Creative Team
Dots
Scenic DesignOana Botez
Costume DesignerYuki Link
Lighting DesignerPalmer Hefferan
Sound DesignerJo Fernandez
Production Stage ManagerAlldaffer and Donadio Casting
CastingFor a description of topics and sensory experiences that audiences may find distressing or inaccessible in advance of attending The Dinosaurs, please click here to read our Content Transparency Statement. If you have any additional questions about content, age-appropriateness, or stage effects (such as strobe lights) that might have a bearing on patron comfort, please utilize our Access Needs Form or email audienceservices@phnyc.org.
A gifted writer possessed of an inquiring mind and a knack for dialogue that splits a situation wide open. Add Jacob Perkins to your list of playwrights to watch out for.
Jacob Perkins' plays feel like spare spells, for the marshaling of particular and delicate energies. I often find myself blindsided by the worlds he so delicately assembles – listening quietly and then walloped by a flood of tears.
[Perkins' writing is] a fearless and pointed look at the human condition.
