J.T. Rogers is a playwright, screenwriter, and founding partner of SRO Productions. He is the creator and showrunner for the series Tokyo Vice for HBO Max, starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe, with the second season recently released to overwhelming critical praise. His film of Oslo, directed by his longtime collaborator Bartlett Sher, is currently available on HBO and HBO Max, and was nominated for two Emmy Awards. His most recent play, Corruption, detailing the Murdoch phone hacking scandal, was directed by partner Bartlett Sher at Lincoln Center Theater in early 2024, where it consistently sold out the Mitzi Newhouse Theater. His play One Giant Leap: The Apollo 11 Moon Landing, celebrating the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first steps on the moon, debuted on Broadway in 2019 and was live-streamed around the world. His other plays include Oslo (Lincoln Center Theater; National Theatre, London); Blood and Gifts (Lincoln Center Theater; National Theatre); The Overwhelming (National Theatre; Roundabout Theatre); White People (Off Broadway); and Madagascar (Theatre 503, London; Melbourne Theatre Company). For Oslo, he won the Tony, New York Critics, Outer Critics, Drama Desk, Drama League, Lortel, and Obie awards, and was nominated for the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards. His theatrical works have been staged throughout the United States and around the world. Rogers’ essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, and the New Statesman. He is a Guggenheim fellow and has received three NYFA fellowships in playwriting. He is an alum of New Dramatists and holds an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Tokyo Vice Season 2
Loosely inspired by American journalist Jake Adelstein’s first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, Season 2 of the series, filmed on location in Tokyo, takes us deeper into the city’s criminal underworld, as Adelstein comes to realize that his life, and the lives of those close to him, are in terrible danger.
Corruption
Corruption tells the story behind the story of the phone hacking scandal that engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in 2011, stunning the world and upending British politics. When Parliament member Tom Watson is maliciously smeared by the newspapers of Murdoch’s News International, he decides to fight back – taking on its larger-than-life leader Rebekah Brooks.
Tokyo Vice Season 1
In 1990s Tokyo, American Jake Adelstein becomes the first foreign-born journalist to write for a Japanese newspaper. Straight out of college and desperate not to return home to Missouri, Jake wills himself into a job on the bottom rung of the ladder of a leading Japanese newspaper. He’s assigned to the crime beat and his life soon becomes enmeshed in the hidden, complex cultures of the city’s vice cops and the criminal underworld of the Yakuza. Tokyo Vice takes us deep into a world never seen before on Western television: Japan from an insider’s point of view.
Oslo (film)
The film stars Ruth Wilson and Andrew Scott as the married Norwegian couple who initiated secret back-channel peace talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, leading to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. It also features Itzik Cohen, Salim Daw, Sasson Gabay, Dov Glickman, Rotem Keinan, Igal Naor, Jeff Wilbusch, Tobias Zilliacus, and Waleed Zuaiter. It premiered on HBO Max, and was nominated for two Emmys, including Outstanding Television Movie. It won the Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Movie Made for Television.
Oslo (play)
Oslo is inspired by the amazing true story of the back-channel talks, unlikely friendships, and quiet heroics that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between the Israelis and Palestinians. The production starred Jennifer Ehle and Jefferson Mays.
One Giant Leap
On July 21, 1969, humans for the first time stepped onto another world. Fifty years later, the scope and daring of the Apollo 11 moon landing is still not fully understood. In One Giant Leap, Tony Award–winner J.T. Rogers tells the gripping, surprising, story-behind-the-story of one of the greatest achievements in history. Weaving together the actual transcripts of the Apollo 11 mission, news coverage of the period, and interviews with the men and women who made the mission happen, One Giant Leap captures the thrills, anxieties, and triumphs of a group of men and women striving to do the impossible.
Blood and Gifts
As the Soviet army burns its way through Afghanistan, CIA operative Jim Warnock is sent to try and halt its bloody progress, beginning a secret spy war behind the official hostilities. Spanning one decade and two continents, Blood and Gifts is a sweeping, often shockingly funny epic drama.
The Overwhelming
An American family arrives to Kigali, Rwanda in 1994 and becomes enmeshed in the politics, fear, and personal betrayals that mark the start of a genocidal war—a horror all can sense is coming but no one can comprehend or control.
Madagascar
At three different periods of time, three Americans find themselves alone in the same hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome. Madagascar is the story of a mysterious disappearance that changes three lives forever.
White People
Now—right now—what does it mean to be a white American? What does it mean for any American to live in a country that does not live up to its promises? White People is a candid, brutally honest meditation on race and language in our culture.