Tony-winner Sarah Jones is bringing her 2016 play “Sell/Buy/Date” to the screen — and is stepping behind the camera to do so. According to Deadline, Jones will make her feature directorial debut with a documentary based on the production, also titled “Sell/Buy/Date.” Meryl Streep, Rashida Jones, and Laverne Cox have signed on as executive producers.
In the original play, Sarah Jones played an array of characters inspired by the real-life experiences of people affected by the sex industry.
The doc “Sell/Buy/Date” will examine the sex industry and sex work, exploring their intersections with race, sexism, and socioeconomics and asking the question: “Is sex work exploitative or empowering?” “Sex work and the sex industry have long been a divisive topic and Jones aims to unpack all of that,” the source teases. “The docu follows the filmmaker (along with several of her characters from the play that inspired the doc as a kind of Greek chorus), as she interviews current and former sex workers/prostituted women, and the (mostly) men who buy and sell their services.”
Set to begin filming in March, “Sell/Buy/Date” will also feature interviews with experts and celebrities. Sarah Jones is producing the project, the first title under her new social justice-focused company, Foment Productions.
“Long before I started performing my characters, at the start of my career I found myself on Rikers Island teaching poetry to incarcerated teenage girls — not exactly light-hearted fodder for the kind of humor I’m known for,” Jones recalled. “As young as 14 years old, many of these girls had been arrested on charges of prostitution. I remember thinking, ‘How can children not old enough to drive or vote be locked up for this “crime”?’”
Jones took home a Special Tony Award for her one-woman Broadway show “Bridge & Tunnel,” which Streep produced. Her on-screen credits include “The Incredible Jessica James,” “Broad City,” and “Marriage Story.” You can see her next in Netflix’s upcoming dramedy about a group 40-something women, “On the Verge.” Jones previously served as writer and producer on the Showtime series “SMILF.”
