Wikipedia

Agnes Borinsky

Agnes Borinsky
OccupationPlaywright, novelist
Period2017–present
Notable worksSasha Masha
Notable awardsLambda Literary Award (nominee)

Agnes Borinsky is an American playwright and author, who wrote the young adult novel Sasha Masha, a coming-of-age story about a queer Jewish American girl, nominated for a Lambda Award in 2021. She wrote and performed in A Song of Songs in 2022, which retold through a queer lens the biblical book Song of Songs. In 2023, her play The Trees premiered at Playwrights Horizons' theatre; the work imagines the lives of siblings whose bodies root into the earth in a Connecticut park. This work was compared to Waiting for Godot, Sagittarius Ponderosa and How to Live in a House on Fire.

Life

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Borinsky comes from Baltimore and her mother is from Boston.[1] She lived for some years in New York before she moved to Los Angeles. In 2012, she joined Donna Oblongata, who was directing a play based on Les Misérables. The unconventional play was said to be unlicensed,[2] although the original book of Les Misérables is out of copyright.[3] The play was performed for a week on the east coast of America after the fifty-plus cast had rehearsed the work under a circus tent.[2] In 2016, she became an artist-in-residence at the University Settlement[4], where Alison Fleminger encouraged her to abandon the restrictions of writing a conventional play. As a result, Borinsky led over twenty collaborators to create a participatory show called "Weird Classrooms". Her next project was a working group based in Brooklyn at the Bushwick Starr theatre.[2]

Writings

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An early experimental theatre piece, Of Government, was commissioned in 2015 and performed in 2017.[5] It was reviewed by the New York Times as having a "globe-crossing plot that is as twisty and slippery as ... an eel", with an opening musical number reminiscent of The Little Mermaid.[6] Borinsky's first novel was published in 2020.[7][8] Sasha Masha is a coming-of-age story about a queer Jewish American girl, but, according to Kirkus Reviews, unlike other books of the genre "doesn't arrive at a clear resolution possessing all the answers, instead displaying a sense of peace with the ongoing journey ahead".[7][9] The same year Borinsky established The Working Group for a New Spirit, which brought together creative practitioners online during the COVID-19 pandemic to discuss texts.[2][10]

In 2022 Borinsky retold the biblical book Song of Songs through a queer perspective, which debuted at the Bushwick Starr, with the writer also in a central role, and was directed by Machel Ross.[11][12] A participatory work, audience members were invited to place paper offerings on an altar, referred to by the reviewer as a "shrine to the dead".[13] The New York Times described the work as "deeply affecting" and one that led the "audience toward a meditative consideration of their own mourning for those they have lost, to death or otherwise".[13]

In 2023 her play The Trees premiered at Playwrights Horizons' theatre; the work imagines the lives of siblings whose bodies root into the earth in a Connecticut park.[14][15][16] Directed by Tina Satter,[17] the play deals with themes of mutual care, community, queer liberation and civil rights.[18] The New York Theatre Guide criticised Borinsky's plot, but also compared the work to Waiting for Godot.[17] In a similarly mixed review, the New York Times described how in the play "Borinsky invites guesses; the problem is that we might not care enough for any of the people or ideas onstage to bother hazarding them".[19] The work has been compared to Sagittarius Ponderosa by MJ Kaufman and How to Live in a House on Fire by Kari Barclay.[20] The three works examine the impact of (wild)fire through queer perspectives.[20] Indeed, Borinsky's work has been discussed as part of a "trans theatre" movement.[21]

Awards

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Personal life

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Borinsky is Jewish American; she is also transgender.[23][8] She lives in Los Angeles.[24]

Selected works

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Novels

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Plays

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References

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  1. ^ Kelley, Rich (January 21, 2016). "Agnes Borinsky on Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, Boston, Baltimore, Yiddish, and RUTH". Ensemble Studio Theatre. Retrieved January 26, 2026.
  2. ^ a b c d Krane, Daniel (July 30, 2024). "Through the Uncertainty, Agnes Borinsky and the Working Group for a New Spirit Are Taking Inventory of Our Lives | The Brooklyn Rail". brooklynrail.org. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  3. ^ Hugo, Victor (1886). Les misérables. G. Routledge and sons.
  4. ^ "Past Artists-In-Residence". University Settlement. May 27, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2026.
  5. ^ Gilmer, Sigrid; Gionfriddo, Gina; Barron, Clare; Backhaus, Jaclyn; Borinsky, Agnes; Arbery, Will; Ryan, Kate E. (April 22, 2021). Unusual Stories, Unusually Told: 7 Contemporary American Plays from Clubbed Thumb: U.S. Drag; Slavey; Dot; Baby Screams Miracle; Men on Boats; Of Government; Plano. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-350-19421-2.
  6. ^ a b "Review: A Shaggy Fish Story With a Bounty of Questing Heroines (Published 2017)". June 9, 2017. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  7. ^ a b SASHA MASHA | Kirkus Reviews.
  8. ^ a b Mason, Derritt; Matos, Angel Daniel; Slater, Katharine (2025). "The 2025 Francelia Butler Lecture: Curtains, Blinds, and Closet Doors". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 50 (1): 5–38. doi:10.1353/chq.2025.a978113. ISSN 1553-1201.
  9. ^ Palm, Kiri (2020). "Sasha Masha by Agnes Borinsky". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 74 (3): 122–123. doi:10.1353/bcc.2020.0735. ISSN 1558-6766.
  10. ^ Bent, Eliza (December 1, 2020). "I Want You in My Zoom. | EBSCOhost". openurl.ebsco.com. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  11. ^ a b Feldman, Adam. "A Song of Songs | Theater in New York". Time Out New York. Archived from the original on August 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  12. ^ "Jeremy O. Harris and Bushwick Starr to Present A Song of Songs". Playbill. Archived from the original on October 6, 2024. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  13. ^ a b "Review: 'A Song of Songs' Makes a Sacrament of Remembrance (Published 2022)". March 13, 2022. Archived from the original on November 22, 2024. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  14. ^ a b Rabinowitz, Chloe. "World Premiere of Agnes Borinsky's THE TREES to be Presented at Playwrights Horizons in February". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  15. ^ "Crystal Dickinson, Max Gordon Moore, Ray Anthony Thomas, More to Star in Agnes Borinsky's The Trees". Playbill. Archived from the original on June 12, 2025. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  16. ^ "'Downstate' and 'Catch as Catch Can' in Playwrights Horizons New Season". April 4, 2022. Archived from the original on April 4, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  17. ^ a b Dziemianowicz, Joe (March 5, 2023). "'The Trees' review — aimless new play doesn't ground itself". New York Theatre Guide. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  18. ^ "If You Took Root, Who Would Tend the Soil? Review of "The Trees"". www.thebody.com. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  19. ^ "Review: Mining a Whimsical Absurdist Vein in 'The Trees'". March 6, 2023. Archived from the original on March 6, 2023. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  20. ^ a b Barclay, Kari (2024). "Burning Hope: Staging Queer Ecology in a Time of Wildfire". New Theatre Quarterly. 40 (4): 372–386. doi:10.1017/S0266464X24000320. ISSN 0266-464X.
  21. ^ Oswald, Sylvan (2023). "Towards a Trans Theatre". The Methuen Drama Handbook of Gender and Theatre: 475–490. doi:10.5040/9781350123205.ch-026. ISBN 978-1-350-12320-5.
  22. ^ Anderson, Porter (March 15, 2021). "The US-Based Lambda Literary Awards Program Names Its 2021 Finalists". Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  23. ^ "Playwright Interview: Agnes Borinsky". www.playwrightshorizons.org. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  24. ^ Borinsky, Agnes. "Agnes Borinsky". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  25. ^ Borinsky, Agnes (November 10, 2020). Sasha Masha. Macmillan + ORM. ISBN 978-0-374-31081-3.
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