Sarah Jones Brings Her ‘One-Woman Global Village’ to Bryn Mawr College on Thursday, March 16
This is a free event. Bryn Mawr students, faculty, and staff can reserve tickets online now at brynmawr.edu/voice/sarah-jones. Tickets will be made available to the Haverford and Swarthmore College communities, as well as Bryn Mawr alumnae/i on Feb. 28. A limited number of seats will be available to the general public on March 3.
Called "a master of the genre" by The New York Times, Jones is a Tony® and Obie Award-winning playwright and performer. She is best known for her critically acclaimed, multi-character solo shows, including her Broadway hit Bridge & Tunnel, which was originally produced by Oscar® winner Meryl Streep, and her current hit show Sell/Buy/Date, which had its world premiere in New York at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
The daughter of two physicians and the product of a multiracial family and community, Jones was educated at Bryn Mawr and the United Nations International School, honing her sense of empathy for people from all backgrounds and the diverse voices that characterize her work.
“Returning at this moment in history feels like a poignant opportunity to honor the multicultural, creative, social justice-focused values that define our nation at its best, and which Bryn Mawr helped me cultivate as a student,” says Jones.
Jones first began her career as a spoken-word performer at venues such as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. There she developed her first show, Surface Transit, which was later presented at The American Place Theatre and PS122 and garnered her first critical acclaim. Her next piece, Women Can’t Wait! was commissioned by The Ford Foundation and human rights group Equality Now to address laws discriminating against women and girls. A subsequent commission by The Ford Foundation and the National Immigration Forum yielded the piece that became the basis for Bridge & Tunnel, which ran off-Broadway at The Culture Project in 2004 and on Broadway in 2006.
An honorary visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Jones has taught and performed at dozens of colleges and universities and held residencies at The MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, Civitella Rainieri, and Hedgebrook.
Jones has received numerous grants, commissions, and theater honors including a Drama League Award, a Helen Hayes Award, two Drama Desk nominations, a Lucille Lortel nomination, an Outer Critics Circle nomination, and HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival’s Best One Person Show Award.
She received an NYCLU Calloway Award in recognition of her successful legal battle with the Federal Communications Commission, which tried to ban from public airways Jones’ feminist hiphop poem recording, Your Revolution.
Renowned as “a one woman global village,” she has also given multiple mainstage "TEDtalks" garnering millions of views, performed at The White House and United State of Women Summit at the invitation of President and First Lady Obama, and has given an historic performance at The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Jones is a longstanding advocate for the empowerment of women and girls and is known for her humanitarian activism, including her role as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador performing for audiences around the world.
She is currently developing multimedia projects based on her characters including launching an upcoming podcast for Public Radio International. Learn more about Jones’ ongoing projects at her website or via social media at @jonesarah on Twitter and @xosarahjones on Instagram and Facebook.