Sarah Jones Asks America’s 250th Anniversary Question at U.S. Premiere Tonight in Brooklyn

Tonight, September 17, 2026, the North American premiere of the solo show “America, Who Hurt You?” by actress and playwright Sarah Jones, winner of Tony and Obie awards, opens at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, New York. The show is the 2026–2027 season opener of Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) — the first programmed by new artistic director Arin Arbus — and comes as a co-production with the National Black Theatre (NBT), directed by Eric Ting.

Jones, known for her chameleon-like ability to embody dozens of characters in a single show, transforms in “America, Who Hurt You?” into a series of figures — from an Indian-American chef to a Japanese immigrant, a white supremacist and members of her own family — as she examines America’s 250-year history. “What is America if not a big, multiethnic, dysfunctional family?” — Jones asks in the show. “And families fight. Hopefully not to the point where they’re destroying each other.”

The show began as a podcast series in 2024, in which Jones interviewed guests such as Monica Lewinsky, Jane Fonda and Wayne Brady, and was commissioned by the University of Oxford’s Schwarzman Centre, where it debuted in May of this year. The work now travels across the U.S. to mark the country’s 250th anniversary.

The program is accompanied by a series of post-show conversations titled “AfterWords,” organized by the National Black Theatre. Tonight, September 17, the panel moderated by NBT’s executive artistic director Jonathan McCrory features Laverne Cox and Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. The show runs through October 4, following an extension of its initial run.

Source: Playbill (https://playbill.com/article/in-her-new-show-sarah-jones-is-asking-america-who-hurt-you)