Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train

Description

"Its aggressive high-octane style is like a shot of caffeine straight in the veins" - Lyn Gardner, Guardian Angel Cruz, a poor Puerto Rican, isn't sure why he's in jail after shooting Reverend Kim, the born-again Christian who brainwashed his best friend. 'All I did was shoot him in the ass', he explains to his long-suffering lawyer Mary Hanrahan. But when the Reverend dies in hospital, Angel lands in solitary confinement next to Lucius, a card-carrying Christian serial-killer. Angel holds out that he was justified and his lawyer's sure that a hearts-and-minds appeal will get him off at trial. But then, in a knife-edge final discussion before Lucius is sent to the electric chair, Angel extraordinarily finds that he too is turning towards the faith that he has so far shunned, thus jeopardising his own case against the born-agains. This is a truth-telling, cage-rattling play about faith, justice and diminishing options in an American prison. A 2001 Edinburgh Festival and Off-Broadway hit, the play's London premieres at the Donmar Warehouse in March 2002.

Stephen Adly Guirgis is a member and former co-artistic director of LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include: Our Lady of 121st Street (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle Best Play Nominations), Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award, Barrymore Award, Olivier Nomination for London's Best New Play), In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings (2007 LA Drama Critics Best Play, Best Writing Award), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (10 Best Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly) and The Little Flower of East Orange, with Ellen Burstyn and Michael Shannon. All five plays were directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and were originally produced by LAByrinth. He has received the Yale Wyndham-Campbell Prize, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Whiting Award and a TCG fellowship. He is also a New Dramatists Alumnae and a member of MCC's Playwright's Coalition, The Ojai Playwrights Festival, New River Dramatists and LAByrinth Theater Company. He was presented with the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award at the Seventh Annual Steinberg Playwright "Mimi" Awards, in November 2014, at Lincoln Center Theater.