Jesus Hates Me
# Jesus Hates Me

Jesus Hates Me is a darkly comic play written by American playwright Wayne Lemon.

Lemon's work has been performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, South Coast Repertory, Hartford Stage and The Denver Centre for the Performing Arts, among others.

The play has been featured in Hartford Stage's Brand: NEW Fall Festival of Plays, Horizon Theatre Company's New South Playworks, New Haarlem Arts Theatre's Unheard Voices for the American Theater, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's Southern Writers' Project and the American National Theatre.

Jesus Hates Me was chosen as the inaugural production of the Denver Center Theatre Company's New Play Summit.

### Critical response to Jesus Hates Me

Lemon has hit upon a genre as irreverent and at times as profane as rap, yet filled with pertinent issues and rebellious politics.--Variety

[This] irreverent dramedy about the search for meaning may offend as often as it convulses. Lemon's narrative is both wildly inappropriate and keenly idiomatic. There's a compassionate point beneath its quirky corrosion.--Los Angeles Times

Lemon is a keen observer of human flaws and frailties, skillfully merging dozens of minute details to form a seriocomic mosaic. Up close, much of it is pointedly funny. From a distance, it's sickly-sad.--Orange County Register

Though Jesus Hates Me does have its occasional sweet moments, it's the acidic ones that make it such a treat.--StageSceneLA

Jesus Hates Me questions faith by confronting social taboos, everything from racism to blasphemy, fraud to adultery, suicide to incest — all through a lens of dark humor.--San Diego Reader

An exquisite comedy, featuring black lines of intriguing thought, with some of the funniest dialogue ever heard. Lemon has done an amazing piece of work.--Back Stage

Jesus Hates Me is a character study, a comedy, a dramatic statement, a fleeting discourse on religion, an exploration of belief, a brief treatise on predestination versus self-determination and a whole lot of fun. It is alive as few plays are.--Centerstage

This irreverent take on the search for meaning is hilarious, poignant, heartfelt, and a deeply vivid portrait of lives teetering on the edge of something big.--KPBS Arts

Lemon's comic touch is razor sharp.--San Diego Union-Tribune

