|
|
DOUGLAS JONES |
|
Nationality: n/a Email: Click here to contact Website: Click here to visit |
|
|
Literary Agent: n/a |
Douglas Jones has written and seen produced more than forty plays. BBC's Bernard Mayes cited Jones's "ability to write in ways which are appealing to the general population without condescension, and focus on the essentials without sugaring the pill." A Richmond News- Leader critic said Jones's work for young audiences "has a fascination with the infinite expressiveness and flexibility of the English language that rivals Sesame Street." And J. Christie noted that Jones's plays combine "the rhythms of Gilbert and Sullivan, references and rhymes from countless familiar tales, and a bit of the late Jim Henson's gift for finding the inner voices of children." Jones's first full-length musical, Bojangles, premiered as the centerpiece of Barksdale Theatre's 40th anniversary season in 1993. He collaborated with composer Charles Strouse (Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, Applause) and Academy Award-winning lyricist Sammy Cahn. Variety praised the play for its "remarkable book that not only limns the title character, warts and all, but also renders the racist world that shaped him." Carole Kass called it "a solid, sensitive script . . . tender and vitriolic, romantic and racist, acerbic and biting." The play sold at 97% capacity for its eleven-week run. In 1994, Barksdale Theatre commissioned and premiered Jones's adaptation of The Turn of the Screw. A Richmond Times-Dispatch critic said the play is "edge-of-your-seat exciting and gives rise to considerable theatrical power. The early scenes in Jones's script unfold with the efficiency and clarity we associate with Masterpiece Theatre. But the production moves into realms that television cannot hope to duplicate." The Free Lance Star agreed: "[the] scenes are cemented by sheer anticipation, each of the next, until the final terrifying moments." A critic for WRVA radio said "I can't think of a better way to spend an autumn evening than watching new life being breathed into the grand-daddy of all ghost stories." The Dramatic Publishing Company published the play in 2000. Jones's award-winning Songs from Bedlam (A Mass of the Ordinary) premiered in 2003. Backstage declared it "a triumph. . . . Jones's script translates into pure electric poetry." Style Weekly said "Jones makes the audience sympathize with the afflicted through poetic and often beautiful monologues." The Richmond Times-Dispatch praised the play for its "richly metaphorical language [and] soaring, searing poetry." And D.C.'s Studio Theatre said the play "achieves a rare and magnificent balance between brutal reality and sublime fantasy." A one-act version of Songs from Bedlam won first place at the 2004 Virginia Theatre Association's One-Act Festival. Recent projects include the one-act play Frankenstein Lives!, which aired on Virginia's PBS stations; four films commissioned by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation for its 400th Anniversary in 2007 (currently on view at the Jamestown Settlement & Yorktown Victory Center); and Genius in the Attic: The Restless Curiosity of Alexander Graham Bell, which premiered at The Carpenter Science Theatre Company in 2008. Jones holds degrees with honors from the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia. He has taught at the University of Virginia, the UVA Center for Continuing Education, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Visual Arts Center, the Henrico Center for the Arts, The Collegiate School, The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, St. Catherine's School, New Voices for the Theatre, SPARC and the Virginia Opera. He has published plays, monologues, short stories, poetry, and an article on James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild and The Authors League of America. He lives in Richmond with his wife Harriett and daughter Emma.
Plays by Douglas Jones
Bojangles | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #92491 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Music by Charles Strouse; lyrics by Sammy Cahn; book by Douglas Jones | |||||
Synopsis: | The story of Bill Robinson - dancing legend Bojangles from an abandoned orphan to dancing with Shirley Temple | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
Frankenstein Lives | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #116727 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Combining the lives of Percy Shelley and Mary with that of her creation Frankenstein and his creation | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
Jack and the Beanstalk | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #116728 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The Depression in the United States. Jack is confined to the barn whilst his father goes to market. He finds a book - it is about himself and a beanstalk | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
Nose, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #116729 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
Turn Of The Screw | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Dramatic Publishing Company | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #116730 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
|
| ||||||
Genre: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Based on the book by Henry James | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
|
