Screening Series
Feature Film:
Brooklyn, Minnesota
Directed by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
Written by Jessica Blank, Erik Jensen, and Han Shan
Produced by Michael Cuomo
Monday, February 9, 2026 – 7:00 p.m.
Macaulay Honors College, 35 West 67th Street
2nd Floor Screening Room
Free Admission, Open to the Public
The Actors Center hosts a screening of the feature film Brooklyn, Minnesota, written and directed by company member Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank on Monday, February 9th at 7:00pm at Macaulay Honors College. The film was produced by company member Michael Cuomo and co-written by Han Shan.
When the grandfather she never knew dies, headstrong 14-year-old Maisie and her single artist dad leave their Brooklyn bubble to go back to his childhood home. In Minnesota, channeling the Riot Grrrl spirit of her late mom, Maisie will upend family patterns, fall in love, and force her family to confront each other and themselves.
The event is free and open to the public. RSVP is required. Wine and beverages will be served. A discussion with the filmmakers and artists will follow the film.
Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank are a multi-hyphenate husband and wife creative team whom The New Yorker calls “the foremost practitioners of documentary theater in the U.S.” Starring their real life daughter Sadie Jensen-Blank in her first leading role, alongside a cast that include 2-time Oscar nominee Amy Madigan, Erik Jensen, Cullen Moss, Jacob Moran, and Joel Marsh-Garland, this family drama is a story of profound forgiveness and a reminder for all of us to love even harder than we think possible.
» Read a personal essay Erik wrote about the making of the film
The film is the winner of the Grey Schwartz Ultra Indie Award for Best Feature and the NYWIFT Award for Excellence in Directing at the Woodstock Film Festival, and has gone on to win multiple additional awards on the festival circuit including Audience Awards at Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, the SoHo International Film Festival and the Rochester Film Festival, and inclusion in the 2025 Popcorn List, an annual survey of acclaimed feature films recommended by film festival programmers across North America without wide release.
Joining Michael Cuomo as producers are Lillian LaSalle, Jessica Blank, and Han Shan. Additional cast includes Heather Reddick, Ines Mojica, and Thomas Kopache.
“Expansive and unconstrained, a testament to confident film craft”
— Deadline
About The Filmmakers
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen are a multihyphenate husband and wife creative team who the New Yorker calls “among the foremost practitioners of documentary theater in the U.S.”
As a team, they are authors of The Exonerated, a genre-defining play based on interviews they conducted with death row exonerees across the U.S. (Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Ovation, Fringe First, Herald Angel Awards; NAACP Image Award nominee; awards from the American Bar Association, The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, named “Best Play of the Year” by the New York Times). Erik and Jessica adapted The Exonerated into an award-winning TV movie starring Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo and Susan Sarandon.
Their documentary play Aftermath, based on interviews conducted with Iraqi refugees in Jordan, was a NYT Critics Pick and nominated for two Drama League awards and their play How to Be a Rock Critic, based on the writings of Lester Bangs and created in partnership with the Lester Bangs estate, played sold-out runs at the Kirk Douglas, Steppenwolf, and the Public Theater, with Erik starring and Jessica directing. Jessica and Erik are currently adapting it for feature film.
Their 2020 play Coal Country, about West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, had a critically acclaimed world premiere at the Public Theater, with original music written and performed by Grammy-award winning musician Steve Earle (Edgerton New Play Award, Lortel and Drama Desk noms). When its run was cut short by COVID, the pair pivoted and wrote The Line, a documentary play based on firsthand interviews with NYC medical first responders at the height of the pandemic. Also a NYT Critics’ Pick, The Line garnered rave reviews from coast to coast and was viewed by over 85,000 people in 50 countries. Coal Country reopened commercially at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2022, produced by the Public and Audible, and was recorded for Audible Theater (Signal Award for Best Drama). They are currently at work on a major new musical under commission from the Public Theater.
Their first feature as writer/directors, Almost Home, based on Jessica’s novel of the same name, was released by Vertical in 2019; their second, Brooklyn, Minnesota, starring Erik and Amy Madigan, world premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival in October 2024, where it won Best Film and Best Director; it has also won Best Fiction Feature at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Rochester Film Festival. They are currently filming a feature documentary about the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, produced by Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award winning producer Audrey Rosenberg (I Am Not Your Negro, HBO’s Katrina Babies) and executive produced and scored by Steve Earle. For television, Jessica and Erik have written and developed for Gaumont TV, Fox TV Studios, 20th Century TV, Blown Deadline, Levinson/Fontana, Avenue Pictures, Sunswept, Virgin Produced, and Radical Media.
As an actor, Erik appeared regularly in both seasons of ABC’s For Life. Other TV credits include arcs on The Walking Dead, Mindhunter, Mr. Robot, The Americans, and over 90 other film and TV roles including his critically acclaimed portrayal of legendary NY Yankee Thurman Munson in The Bronx Is Burning. Theater credits include The Collaboration on Broadway opposite Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope, Lincoln Center’s Pulitzer Prize winning production of Disgraced, Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Good Negro at the Public (dir. Liesl Tommy), and Vladimir at MTC (dir. Daniel Sullivan). Jessica’s TV and film acting credits include Ramy, Prodigal Son, For Life, High Maintenance, and dozens more. Jessica is a Professor in the Drama Division at the Juilliard School. They live in Brooklyn with their daughter Sadie.