Forever Onwards. Writing, plays, music, and games — for those still becoming.
Comrade Classen builds things that synthesize inner life — across writing, plays, music, and games.
Joseph “Comrade” Classen is a playwright, musician, writer, and game director based in Elizabeth, NJ, working under Classen LLC. Puerto Rican and Colombian. His plays premiere in northern New Jersey. His writing lives at Forever Onwards. His current project is HAJIME, a judo dojo simulator set in a fully simulated New Jersey, in long-form development.
3000 Days of Abandonment premiered at the Hamilton Arts Festival in August 2025. Sold out both performances. Won 1st Place in the HAF Playwriting Competition. A monologue from the play is published in The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2026 (Smith & Kraus). HAF Playwright-in-Residence, March–August 2025.
Press: NJ Stage · TAPinto Paterson · NJ Arts Maven
HAJIME is a judo dojo simulator set in a fully simulated New Jersey. You run a school. White belts walk through the door, and over years you decide what the place becomes — a competition factory, a traditional Kodokan club, a federation player, a family lineage. The dojo persists when your character doesn’t. Matches simulate at the grip; throws emerge from kuzushi, and a prose layer narrates what the engine did. Hajime is what the referee calls to begin a match. In long-form development.
Repo on GitHub · Devlog (coming soon)
Forever Onwards: Letters from a Comrade. Essays for those still searching — for meaning, for strength, for self. On Substack since 2024.
Covers, instrumentals, and experimental jams on 12-string guitar, banjo, harmonica, accordion, Moog synthesizers, SP-404 MKII, and Maschine MK3. Bomba percussion, trained with Segunda Quimbamba.