Jack in the Box. Or, How to Goddamn Direct by Jack O’Brien
For her jacket design for Jack in the Box, Cecilia Zhang drew inspiration from the paraphernalia of vintage theatre playbills. Adding to the design’s narrative, the author’s signature gives the impression of a beloved autographed fan copy of the flyer.
Jack in the Box is a memoir by Jack O’Brien (b. 1939), winner of Tony and Drama Desk Awards and the former artistic director of San Diego’s historic Old Globe theatre. The hardback edition was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in November 2022, using Ballast for the title and author name, with all-caps Futura for the subtitle. The paperback version by Picador, which will follow later this year, uses the same basic design.
In Jack in the Box, O’Brien’s follow-up to his memoir Jack Be Nimble, the director collects stories from the many productions he has worked on, the great talents he encountered and collaborated with (including Tom Stoppard, Mike Nichols, Jerry Lewis, Marsha Mason, and many others), and the choices he made, on the stage and off, that have come to define his career. With humor, warmth, and contagious excitement, O’Brien takes the reader by the shoulder, pulls them in, and tells them how to become a director—or, at the very least, relates an unfailingly honest story of how he did.
For the paperback edition, the author’s name was made slightly larger, and the signature moved down a little.
