Jessica Blank, Erik Jensen

Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen are an award-winning multihyphenate husband and wife creative team for theater, film and television, who the New Yorker calls “the foremost practitioners of documentary theater in the U.S.”

As a team, they are authors of The Exonerated, a genre-defining play based on interviews they conducted with death row exonerees across the US (Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Ovation, Fringe First, Herald Angel Awards; NAACP Image Award nominee; awards from the American Bar Association, The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, named “Best Play of the Year” by the New York Times). After a two-year Off-Broadway run and major national tour starring Robin Williams, Lynn Redgrave, Aidan Quinn, Gabriel Byrne and Brian Dennehey among many others, Erik and Jessica adapted The Exonerated into an award-winning TV movie starring Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo and Susan Sarandon. Their documentary play Aftermath, based on interviews conducted with Iraqi refugees in Jordan, premiered Off-Broadway at NYTW, directed by Jessica; was a NYT Critics Pick and was nominated for two Drama League awards. Their play How to Be a Rock Critic (based on the writings of Lester Bangs), played sold-out runs at Center Theater Group, South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf, and the Public Theater, with Erik starring and Jessica directing. Their 2020 play Coal Country, about West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, had a critically acclaimed world premiere at the Public Theater, directed by Jessica, with original music written and performed by Grammy-award winning musician Steve Earle (Edgerton New Play Award, two Drama Desk noms including Jessica for Best Director, Lortel Award nom). When COAL COUNTRY’s run was cut short by COVID, the pair pivoted and wrote The Line, a documentary play based on firsthand interviews with NYC medical first responders at the height of the pandemic, starring Lorraine Toussaint, Alison Pill, John Ortiz, and Nicholas Pinnock. Also a NYT Critics’ Pick, The Line garnered rave reviews from coast to coast and was viewed by over 85,000 people in 50 countries. Coal Country reopened commercially at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2022 to critical acclaim, produced by the Public and Audible, and was recorded for Audible Theater (Signal Award for Best Drama).

As TV/screenwriters, Jessica and Erik currently have projects in development with David Simon/Blown Deadline, Levinson/Fontana, and Ed Burns (The Wire, Generation Kill). They wrote the pilot The Negotiator for Gaumont TV (EP Tom Fontana) and have developed with Fox TV Studios, 20th Century TV, Levinson/Fontana, Avenue Pictures, Sunswept, Virgin Produced, and Radical Media, among others. Their first feature as writer-directors, Almost Home, based on Jessica’s novel of the same name, was released by Vertical Entertainment in 2019; their second, Brooklyn, Minnesota, starring Erik and Oscar nominee Amy Madigan, is currently in post-production, and their third, How To Be A Rock Critic, is in development with Cameron Crowe as Creative Consultant. They are in pre-production with Meteor17 and Paramount to direct a feature documentary about legendary rock engineer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones), and in development for a feature documentary about the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, produced by Emmy winner Audrey Rosenberg (I Am Not Your Negro, HBO’s Katrina Babies) and executive produced by Steve Earle.

As an actor, Erik appeared regularly in both seasons of ABC’s For Life (EP 50 Cent). His recent film and TV work includes Tow opposite Rose Byrne and Doc for FOX. Other TV credits include arcs on The Walking Dead, Mindhunter, Mr. Robot, The Americans, and over 100 other film and TV roles including his critically acclaimed portrayal of legendary NY Yankee Thurman Munson in The Bronx Is Burning. Theater acting credits include The Collaboration on Broadway opposite Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope, Lincoln Center’s Pulitzer Prize winning production of Disgraced, and Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Good Negro at the Public (dir. Liesl Tommy.) Jessica’s TV and film acting credits include Ramy, Prodigal Son, For Life, High Maintenance, and dozens more; she is active as a director of new work Off-Broadway, has published three novels (Almost Home, Hyperion; Karma For Beginners, Penguin; and Legacy, Penguin) and is a professor in the graduate Drama Division at the Juilliard School. They live in Brooklyn with their daughter Sadie.