5 Minutes With...Cultural Fellow Sarah Jones
Ahead of her upcoming show America, Who Hurt You? Live, Tony Award-winning performer, writer, and Schwarzman Centre Cultural Fellow Sarah Jones visited Oxford to meet academics, exchange ideas, and further develop the research behind her new live show. Known for bringing together historical insight, comedy and social critique through a vivid cast of characters, Sarah Jones interrogates America’s national myths and lived realities with rigour and wit.
America, Who Hurt You? Live expands on her podcast of the same name, drawing on 250 years of American history to examine how the past continues to shape the present. As part of the Unfinished Revolutions season - a programme tracing the living legacy of 1776 – this show asks urgent questions about who we are, how we got here, and what remains unresolved.
What are you developing at the moment, and how does it build on your existing work?
I’m currently working on America, Who Hurt You? Live — it’s a performance piece inspired by my podcast of the same name, only in the live show, I hope to hold up a mirror to our country in a way that allows for real-time interaction with the audience.
The show draws from 250 years of American history through multiple characters. How do you decide which moments or voices to bring forward, and what is your process for weaving them together?
As a Black woman from a multiracial family and upbringing, I’ve always had a sense of the complex relationships my ancestors have had to America, whether as immigrants from Europe, as enslaved African people, or as refugees persecuted for religious or other cultural reasons. So I want to focus on key moments in our history, while broadening my lens on those events beyond the traditional authors of our history books.
What are you watching, reading, and listening to right now?
Right now, probably not unlike most Americans, I’m reading, watching, and listening to a LOT of news, just to stay as current as I can with the whiplash-inducing pace of events! I’m also consuming lots of historical material - from documentaries to rare recordings of 19th century voices – partly inspired by conversations with Oxford academics!
If you could invite any thinker, artist, or writer (past or present) into conversation, who would it be and why?
Bryan Stevenson leaps to mind first. He’s the award-winning author, lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. After growing up in racial segregation he went on to become a celebrated Harvard alumnus, winning multiple cases before the Supreme Court, and saving at least 140 lives of people on death row, many of them completely innocent. He is the embodiment of the best of what Americans can be when we live out the courage of our convictions.
Can you describe your work in 3 words?
She Pluribus Unum!
America, Who Hurt You? Live is coming to the Schwarzman Centre on 22 and 23 May 2026, offering a timely exploration of American identity at a pivotal moment of change. Tickets are on sale now.
