Photo by Jake Holt.
Originally from Austin, Gary is a Brooklyn-based writer/director of film and theatre.
Gary was a 2020 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Fellow for his feature screenplay Our Last Summer (formerly Last Summer with Ira.) His three short films Sunset, Next Level Shit and Last Summer with Uncle Ira have played around the world and won awards and accolades from Rhode Island to North Dakota. His first feature film Before I Do is currently in post-production!
His theatre work has appeared on stages around the country, including his plays Diaspora TX, Song to the Moon, Love in Pine and the musical At First Sight. As a member of The Amoralists, Gary co-developed the ‘Wright Club playwright development lab. In Austin, he was Artistic Director of Tutto Theatre Company, during which time he received the B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Director for The Dudleys!: A Family Game and the Austin Critics' Table Award for Best Drama for Spirits to Enforce, which he also directed. Gary is an alumnus of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater workshop.
Gary attended Yale University, from which he has a BA in Theater Studies. At Yale, he directed eight productions and slept very little.
He currently operates under the banner Dream&Time. Previous work featured the names Band of Others and Gaily Forward.
Awards & Honors
2020 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Fellow for Our Last Summer (formerly Last Summer with Ira.)
In 2017-2018, Sunset received honors from the Rhode Island International Film Festival, the East Village Queer Film Festival, the FM LGBT Film Festival, and the Corvallis Queer Film Festival.
In 2019-2020, Next Level Shit won awards from the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Macon Film Festival, Wicked Queer Boston, Dayton LGBT Film Festival, Out on Film Atlanta, Cinema Diverse Palm Springs and the CMG Short Film Festival.
In 2020, Last Summer with Uncle Ira received Best in Show from the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival.
In 2011, The Dudleys!: A Family Game by Leegrid Stevens won 8 B. Iden Payne Awards, including Outstanding Director of a Comedy for Gary Jaffe.
In 2011, Gary’s production of Spirits to Enforce by Mickle Maher won the Austin Critics’ Table Award for Best Drama.
2020 Richard B. Sewall Cup for Scholarly Achievement with Creative Promise at Yale University.
"El Sueño va sobre el Tiempo…”
My banner is a reference to Así que pasen cinco años/Once Five Years Pass by Federico García Lorca, which I translated and directed for my senior thesis in college. At its core, the play’s evocation of dream and time reminds me that both film and theater are dreams which unfold in time (very Lorca!) and that my artistic journey itself is the pursuit of a dream in as much time as it takes.
Logo designed by Dashiell Robb.