Who I Am

Jennifer S. Jones

Jennifer S. Jones is a writer and actor with a diverse background in education, community development, and intercultural training. She holds a BA (Theater) from Connecticut College and an MFA (Playwriting) from the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she received the Chair Graduate Award for Distinguished Achievement. Her plays include Sunday’s Child, upcoming production with Dark Horse Theatre, Spring 2014, winner of Panndora’s Box Festival, 2009, Reston Players Festival, 2010; The Well, a finalist for the Barter Theatre’s Appalachian Festival in 2007; Yellow Rose; Ship of Lights, finalist for the Goldberg Award for Excellence in Playwriting in 2004; West of Wyoming; HIM / HER ; and her one-woman show Appearance of Life, most recently seen off-Broadway, NYC 2012 ; the Capital Fringe (Editor's Pick) and the New York International Fringe Festivals, 2010 ; and at the Women Playwrights International Festival in Mumbai, India, 2009. Appearance of Life received the Kennedy Center’s KCACTF Regional Award for Best One Act as well as the Alberto Vilar Fellowship nomination. Jennifer has been commissioned by Hildebrandt International, resulting in the play Inside-Out; Thomson Reuters & Hildebrandt International, for the screenplay Reputation at Risk; Beazley Insurance of London, for the screenplay A&E Risk Management; and the Stanford Symphony, culminating in Transfigured Night.

In performing her one-woman show series, Letters to Clio, Jennifer has been consistently struck by the impact a personal story can have on others. Jennifer bases her plays on real-life experiences.  First, she goes into communities, researches their history and interviews individuals.  This research then becomes the basis for her storyline and characters, giving communities insight into their values, strengths and weaknesses.  Through this process, the plays’ audiences are able to empathize with the characters, while learning about others’ lives and experiences. Believing that through theater, we create our own reality, Jennifer creates stories that give voice to people whose voices are not being heard.

In addition to her work onstage, Jennifer worked for eight years as the International Coordinator for Stage Entertainment BV (seeking new properties to produce in Stage Entertainment’s eight other countries) and as the Events Manager for New World Stages.  Jennifer has been a teacher of English as a Second Language to corporations that are managing multi-national companies. Expanding on her work as an ESL teacher, Jennifer has also organized individual and group seminars on Intercultural Training for a Cross-Cultural World.