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, the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund, 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
Playwrights: Arts and Leisure. Broadway: King Lear, Picnic, Other Desert Cities, Top Girls, Seascape, An American Daughter. Off-Broadway: Hedda Gabler (Obie Award), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Lucille Lortel Award), Fifty Words, Julius Ceasar, Ford/Hill, Sabbath’s Theater, Five Models in Ruins, 1981. Film: G2O, The Color Purple, News of the World, The Meyerowitz Stories. Upcoming untitled Steven Spielberg. TV: Presumed Innocent, Mrs. Davis, Love And Death, The Dropout, Unbelievable. The Juilliard School.
Playwrights: iOW@, Antlia Pneumatica. Broadway: Mary Jane, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Off Broadway: Primary Trust, Toni Stone, Help; Fairview, LEAR; Signature Plays—Funnyhouse of a Negro. With Elevator Repair Service: Baldwin/Buckley at Cambridge, The Sound & the Fury; Fondly, Collette Richland; Measure for Measure; GATZ. TV: “Not Suitable For Work,” “The Beast in Me,” “Elsbeth,” “FBI,” “The Blacklist,” “Evil,” “The Good Fight,” “New Amsterdam.” Film: Fugitive Dreams, Ramona at Midlife, The Plea, Take Me Home.
Playwrights debut. Broadway: Fish in the Dark with Larry David, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. National Tours: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and War Horse, both with The National Theatre of Great Britain. Off-Broadway: Eurydice (Signature), 72 Miles to Go (Roundabout), Mary Page Marlowe and Living Out (Second Stage), Important Hats… (MTC), Somewhere Fun (Vineyard), The Thugs (Soho Rep). Film/Television: includes St. Vincent, The Women, “Blue Bloods,” “New Amsterdam, “The Other Two,” “The Blacklist,” “Defending Jacob,” “FBI,” “Elementary,” “The Sopranos.”
Playwrights debut. Broadway: Oklahoma! dir. Daniel Fish. Off-Broadway: Oklahoma! (St. Ann's Warehouse, Bard Summerscape), Cold War Choir Practice (Clubbed Thumb), A Party With Comden and Green (Cafe Carlyle), Most Happy (Williamstown), Privacy (The Public), A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Public), Inspired by True Events (OOTB). Stella in The Streetcar Project’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Film: Maestro. TV: “American Horror Story” (FX), “American Rust” (Amazon), “The Good Fight” (Paramount+), “Grace and Frankie” (Netflix). Education: UIUC, Juilliard.
Playwrights: For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Sister Mary Ignatius, Paradise, Mississippi Moonshine, The Coroner’s Plot, Cowboy Pictures, Demons. Broadway: Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk nom.), Racing Demon, Dance with Me. NY/Off-Broadway: A Woman of the World, Wit (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle, Obie Awards), Hellzapoppin’, Four Quartets (BAM), A Walk in the Woods (Drama Desk nom.), Talking Heads (Obie Award), Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination), Henry V (Callaway Award). Television/Film: Familiar Touch, “The Copenhagen Test”, “The Affair,” “Rescue Me,” “The Blacklist,” “High Maintenance,” “House of Cards,” The Guardian, “Madam Secretary,” Duplicity, Old, Kinsey, Lackawanna Blues.
Playwrights debut. Select Theatre: Daphne and Her Requiem (Lincoln Center, LCT3); Bodies They Ritual, Lunch Bunch, and Of Government with Clubbed Thumb; You Got Older (World Premiere at Page 73); Heartbreak (Bushwick Starr/New Georges); Half Moon Bay (Lesser America/Cherry Lane); Significant Other (Geffen Playhouse); Bad Jews (Long Wharf). Select Film + TV: She Said; “Monsterland,” “The Plot Against America,” “Orange is the New Black.”
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.
