Conversation with James Ijames

Actor/writer James Ijames has a busy year. The out Philadelphia transplant and Temple University grad appeared in a number of regional theater productions, including a celebrated staging of Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America, in which Ijames played Belize. Later in the year Maukingbird Theater Company premiered The Threshing Floor, his one-man show about out writer James Baldwin. In August, he was announced as one of 5 finalists for the F. Otto Haas Award for Emerging Theater Artist. The recipient will be announced on October 4 at the Barrymore Awards. He was gracious enough to talk with me about his year, his play and what being gay and a person of color means to his art.