Justin Kuritzkes

Justin Kuritzkes (born May 5, 1990) is an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter best known for writing the scripts for two of Luca Guadagnino's films, Challengers and Queer. He has also been the subject of media coverage because of his activities on YouTube, such as the 2011 video "Potion Seller". Kuritzkes was born into a Jewish family and raised in Los Angeles, California. His father is a gastroenterologist, and his mother practises real estate law. In 2008, Kuritzkes graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. Kuritzkes attended Brown University, where he studied philosophy and literary arts. At Brown, Kuritzkes studied with playwrights Gregory Moss, Lisa D'Amour, and Erik Ehn, participated in a Production Workshop, and was involved in local protests affiliated with the Occupy movement. Kuritzkes graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2012. Kuritzkes's one-act play An Autobiography of my Brother, first written for the 2008 Harvard-Westlake Playwrights Festival, was among the works honoured at the 2010 Young Playwrights Competition. Beginning at Brown University, Kuritzkes uploaded videos recorded using the Photo Booth application to YouTube. The most famous of these videos, Potion Seller, went viral online and inspired parodies in publications including The New Yorker. Kuritzkes received a MacDowell Fellowship in both 2012 and 2016. In 2016, his play The Sensuality Party toured the university circuit of New York state. He released the novel Famous…