Writer for Plays and TV Scripts

An average high school student who flunked English, he went on to win playwright awards while writing about people living within marginalized society conditions that he wanted to illustrate with their stories. 

When asked about how to get started as a writer, he replied: “Just write. Worry about what’s on the page once it’s on the page. For now, just write.”

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Nathan Louis Jackson (NJ) was born in Lawrence, Kansas. His father was a heating and cooling service technician. His mother was a preschool teacher. 

EDUCATION

NJ was admittedly not a good student in high school, studying as little as he could to earn barely passing grades. “Ironically, I failed English because I didn’t want to read Shakespeare.” 

He graduated from Kansas City Kansas Community College with an Associate degree, where he majored in theater while making his first attempt at playwriting by creating monologues for the forensics competitions, staged to develop debating and advocacy skills in students. 

FIRST JOB IS NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT

After graduating from college with a Bachelor’s degree, NJ acted in a children’s theater, took graduate courses in environmental science and writing and worked as the manager of a barbecue restaurant. 

He then moved to New York City and enrolled in The Juilliard School as a graduate student to study playwriting. 

WRITING ABOUT YOUR INTERESTS

NJ grew up in the Midwest, where he noted “there ain’t no other Black folks doing this” – writing plays – so he thought he would just end up trying to imitate August Wilson but instead, “I wanted to do a piece that speaks for me, so I said, ‘I’ll just write my own stuff.”

Editor’s note – August Wilson (1945-2005) was an American playwright, often referred to as the “theater’s poet of Black America.” He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle, which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20^th century. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. 

NJ wrote two plays while still in college. Each play was recognized by the Kennedy Center after his graduation. 

After moving to New York City from a much less ethnically diverse culture in the Midwest, NJ was interested to see people from all over the world on the subway. But at the theater, “I did not see that,” he later said. “What I saw was  predominantly White, older and with a little money in their pockets.” 

NJ strove to write plays featuring “people marginalized by poverty, incarceration or gun violence,” said his wife. “Lots of times they were Black characters because that’s what he knew.”

NJ was still attending the Juilliard School when his play “Broke-ology” premiered at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. The story of a Black family in a poor neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, where NJ grew up, it focuses on a confrontation between two brothers over the care of their father, who has a debilitating case of multiple sclerosis, a disease that NJ’s father also had.

A play reviewer for The Boston Glober wrote that “what makes Jackson’s writing feel true and fresh – aside from its great humor – was the way he portrayed the brothers. Malcolm isn’t just a selfish striver, nor is Ennis just a resigned martyr and the father isn’t just a passive victim.”

A year later, “Broke-ology” opened Off Broadway at Lincoln Center in New York City. A reviewer for The Record of Hackensack, New Jersey, wrote that the play is “imperfect but it’s a very promising debut in the big time for a playwright with a rare quality: heart.”

NJ’s next play, “When I Come to Die,” explored the emotional turmoil of a death row inmate whose execution goes awry – the drug cocktail that was supposed to kill him managed only to stop his heart temporarily – forcing him to wonder what to do with an unexpected extension of his life, and if he will face another execution.

“I started thinking about people in weird time positions, and these cats know exactly how much time they have left on this earth,” said NJ of death row inmates. “But what happens if you get more of it?”

Other plays written by NJ include “Sticky Traps,” about a woman’s response to protests by a homophobic preacher at the funeral of her gay son, who had killed himself; and “Brother Toad,” about the reactions in the Kansas City community to the shooting of two Black teenagers.

USING YOUR SKILL IN A DIFFERENT WAY

After returning to live in Kansas, NJ was the Playwright in Residence at the Kansas City Repertory Theater. But also over the last decade of his life, NJ wrote episodes of several TV series, including “13 Reasons Why,” “Resurrection,” “S.W.A.T.,” “Southland,” “Shameless” and “Luke Cage” for which he was an executive story editor. “This series makes a bigger, grander statement about African American men and how we view them,” said NJ about “Luke Cage,” a Marvel show whose title character is a former convict with superhuman strength and unbreakable skin who solves crimes in the Harlem neighborhood (known to be predominantly Black) of New York City. 

“It’s undoubtedly a Black show,” noted NJ. “But at the same time, it’s just a superhero show. We deal with something all the other superheroes deal with. We just do it from a different perspective.”

CAREER SATISFACTION

“The beautiful thing about his writing is that he never told the audience what to think,” said a fellow theater professional. “He’d share a story that was compelling and truthful and let the people (audience) have their own conversations.”

NJ was awarded the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award twice and the Mark Twain Comedy Playwriting Award for “The Last Black Play.”

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This career story is based on several sources, including an obituary written by Richard Sandomir, published within The New York Times on September 6, 2023 plus internet research.