{"id":363136,"date":"2026-10-02T20:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363136\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T20:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:04:16","slug":"jeremy-o-harris-on-the-democrats-and-his-message-for-new-york-city-mayor-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363136\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy O. Harris on the Democrats, and His Message for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2018, the world was introduced to Harris with the headline-making debut of his first major production, Slave Play<\/a>. Eager to capitalize on his moment in the spotlight, and not only be remembered as the creator of the \u201chot Black play that came and went,\u201d Harris said he got \u201cshameless\u201d with his public persona \u201cby making sure I was everywhere.\u201d But his time on the media circuit was less about \u201cpersonal promotion\u201d than \u201cself-preservation,\u201d Harris told Guiducci. \u201cI was doing anything I can to not go back to Virginia and have to work at a Burger King.\u201d<\/p>\n

The explosive Slave Play, a piece about the impact of systemic racism which centered on three interracial couples who undergo radical \u201cantebellum sexual performance therapy,\u201d earned a record-breaking 12 Tony nominations, but ultimately won zero awards at the 2021 ceremony. When asked about the shutout five years later, Harris doesn\u2019t hold back: \u201cThe bitchiest level is that in spaces where it matters, as in spaces with money, people think I won the Tony. So it kind of doesn\u2019t matter if you win or lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his laissez-faire attitude toward the American Theatre Wing, Harris remains deeply impassioned about the state of Broadway, from his divisive take on cell phones in the audience\u2014\u201caddiction to your phone is a type of disability\u201d\u2014to the current economic strain. \u201cThe amount of stifling work that has to be put on because people fear that unless you have the six biggest celebrities from the sixth-biggest Netflix show that week in your play that it can\u2019t run and recoup,\u201d Harris explains, \u201cmeans that we are not getting the great performers of yesteryear that we discover from their off-Broadway to Broadway transfer. It means that people that decided to do this because it is a middle-class profession are not able to feed their kids or not able to feed their families and are having to figure out what to do in this really, really expensive city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the entire hot-topic-filled conversation between Harris and VF\u2019s Guiducci above, in which the former gets candid about all corners of politics and pop culture. And don\u2019t forget to follow Fair Game on YouTube<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2018, the world was introduced to Harris with the headline-making debut of his first major production, Slave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2558,9,24,55,54,56,905],"class_list":["post-363136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-hollywood","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}