Highlights 2007
Sarah Jones
Opening Plenary
Thursday, July 12, 5 p.m.
Sarah Jones is a Tony Award®-winning playwright, actor, and poet. Her multicharacter solo shows include Bridge & Tunnel, which was originally produced Off-Broadway by Oscar-winner Meryl Streep and went on to become a critically-acclaimed, long-running smash-hit on Broadway.
Jones's career has taken her from a sold-out run at the Kennedy Center to tours of India, Europe, and South Africa—and to performances for the United Nations, members of the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court of Nepal. Her multicultural cast of characters has always been a reflection of her diverse audiences.
A proud Queens, New York native, Jones attended the United Nations International School and Bryn Mawr College, where she was the recipient of the Mellon Minority Fellowship. She then returned to New York and began writing and competing in poetry slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café. There she developed her first show, Surface Transit which was presented at the American Place Theatre and P.S. 122. Her next piece, Women Can't Wait!, was commissioned by Equality Now to address the human rights of women and girls. A subsequent commission by the National Immigration Forum yielded Waking the American Dream, the inspiration for Bridge & Tunnel. Most recently, Jones has been commissioned by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for a piece entitled A Right to Care, which tackles themes of inequality in health.
Sarah Jones has also received grants and commissions from Lincoln Center Theater and the Ford Foundation. Her theater honors include an Obie, a Helen Hayes Award, two Drama Desk nominations, HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival's Best One Person Show Award, and a New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) Calloway Award in recognition of being the first artist in history to sue the Federal Communications Commission for censorship. The lawsuit resulted in reversal of the censorship ruling, which had targeted her hip-hop poem recording, "Your Revolution." A regular uncensored guest on public radio, she has also made numerous television appearances on HBO, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and in her own special, "The Sarah Jones Show," on Bravo. Jones lives in New York with her creative partner and husband, Steve Colman.
