Biographies
Jennifer S. Jones – Writer / Performer
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, 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; and her one-woman show Letters to Clio, most recently seen at the Women Playwrights International Festival in Mumbai, India. Letters to Clio also 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, and the Stanford Symphony, resulting in Transfigured Night.
In performing her one-woman show, 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 has worked for the past five 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.
Jessica Lefkow – Director
Jessica Lefkow holds a BFA (Acting) degree from The Catholic University of America. A native of Washington, D.C., she has lived, directed, performed and taught theater across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Since returning to the United States in 2003, she has worked extensively with playwrights on bringing new scripts to production.
In November 2008, Jessica directed the World Premiere of Honey Brown Eyes by Stefanie Zadravec at Theater J, Winner of The Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical, 2009 Helen Hayes Awards. (Also published in the February 2009 issue of American Theatre magazine). Other American credits include critically acclaimed productions at each of the Capital Fringe Festivals, (Frida Vice Versa; Margherita; Tales of Doomed Love, or is it ever worth it), 1st Stage in Tyson's Corner, Va. (Red Herring), The New Play House, (On Island; The Disposition of the Mail) Firebelly Productions, (Conversing 11s/Take Stock). Her work has also appeared at the Kennedy Center's 'Page to Stage' Festivals, Washington Shakespeare Company, GMU’s Theater of the First Amendment, Spooky Action Theater, Theatre Lab, Playwrights Forum, and Calliope Productions.
Recently, Jessica directed Dear Sara Jane for The Hub Theatre (February 19-March 21, 2010 at the Soundry, in Vienna, VA ; www.thehubtheatre.org) and will appear this June in dog & pony dc’s Courage, a political theatre revival www.dogandponydc.com
Jessica Lefkow is a member of AFTRA. She sits on the board of the Paul Moran Foundation (www.paulmoran.org) , which is dedicated to raising funds for children’s education in the Middle East. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband, Chris, a journalist, and two of their three sons.