OLD FRIENDS: The cast of the Lewis Center for the Arts’ production of “The Comeuppance” by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright and Princeton alum Branden Jacobs-Jenkins ’06. (Photo by Jon Sweeney)
The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater and Music Theater at Princeton University presents The Comeuppance by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright and Princeton alumnus Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Class of 2006. Performances are April 3, 4, 10, and 11 at the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place.
In this dramedy taking place in the fall of 2022, a self-defined group of outsider Millennials gather on the eve of their 20th high school reunion as an undeniable element of the future viscerally looms before them. The production is directed by Princeton faculty member Vivia Font. The self-proclaimed “Multi-Ethnic Reject Group” reconnects on the porch of a house in their old neighborhood in Prince George’s County, Md.
Reminiscing about their high school years and recent pasts, including living through COVID-19, 9/11, and the Columbine High School shooting, and fueled by drinking and smoking pot, the friends discover competing, recollected versions of their teenage years. They find themselves facing a reckoning with the memories of who they were, and are, and that their past actions may have irrevocably sealed their present fates.
The play premiered Off-Broadway at Signature Theatre in New York City, running from May to July 2023. Jacobs-Jenkins, who serves as a member of the Lewis Center’s advisory council, received the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for his play, Purpose. He also received the 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for Appropriate. His other plays include Girls, which had its first developmental performance at the Lewis Center in 2017, Everybody, War, Gloria, An Octoroon, and Neighbors.
Performances are April 3, 4, and 10 at 8 p.m. and April 11 at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 ($10 students). McCarter Theatre is at 91 University Place. Visit mccarter.org for tickets.
A pre-show conversation with the playwright and Professor of the Practice Lloyd Suh precedes the April 3 performance at 5 p.m. in the Berlind Rehearsal Room at McCarter, which is free and open to the public.