Recipient of the Justice Through the Arts

James Scruggs Writer/Producer/Creator - 3/Fifths

James Scruggs is a writer, performer, producer, screenwriter, who creates large scale topical, theatrical, multi-media and virtual work focused on inequity or gender politics. In 2018, he created a site specific immersive, interactive, satirical work commissioned by The High Line… MELT!. He was awarded a 2015 MAP Grant and a 2016 Creative Capital Grant, to create 3/Fifths. Performed in May 2017, it was a fully immersive, interactive ethno-theme park, exploring race and racism called SupremacyLand.

His November 2017, 3/Fifths Trapped in a Traveling Minstrel Show was about how unarmed black men are still feared and legally killed. It received an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Fringe Production in Boston.

He recently produced and performed a virtual piece exploring the limited choices that people trapped in the World Trade Center were faced with, called Severe Clear. 2022.

He is currently working on a theatrical/social justice piece, Off The Record, Restorative Acts of Justice (recently funded by NPN) where effects of mass incarceration are confronted head on. In 3 cities, NYC, Boston, and Tampa, Fl. 15 BIPOC with criminal records will be identified, paired with a an attorney and have their records expunged, and their stories will be shared theatrically.

James Scruggs has a BFA in Film from School of Visual Arts. www.jamesscruggs.com.