Jaja’s African Hair Braiding playwright Jocelyn Bioh spoke recently with Lynn Nottage (Pulitzer winner for Ruined and Sweat) about her process, her people, and her play’s success.
LYNN: What a run you had! And what a joy to spend a day in your hair salon, with your humor and your compassion and your love of Black women! Congratulations. It was a triumphant debut on Broadway.
JOCELYN: Thank you so much. I can’t even articulate how much that means coming from you.
LYNN: I’m so curious about your process. Something that I admire about your work is that the worlds are so specific. From School Girls to Nollywood Dreams to Jaja’s, there’s a real sense that your imagination has fully inhabited the spaces—it feels like you’ve been right inside of those spaces. By the end of , I felt like I was sitting in that chair with those women for a full day, getting my hair tugged at. The question I want to ask is, where do you begin with your writing journey? With a place, with a character, or with an idea?
