Venzella Newsome Jones (1893–1973) was a black actress, orator, playwright, drama teacher, and theatre director.
Education and career
Jones was born in Ohio. She attended
King's School of Oratory The King's School of Oratory, or the Byron W. King School of Oratory, was a school for speech arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that operated from 1888 to at least 1948.
The school taught elocution and speech arts including public speaking, dramat ...
in Pittsburgh, becoming its first black graduate. Later she taught drama at
Rust College, Mississippi and at
Morgan State College in Baltimore.
She organised the Imperial Art Players in Pittsburgh in 1924 and later formed the eponymous Venzella Jones Repertory Group.
She was the Director of the
Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United ...
’s Negro Youth Theatre.
References
Further reading
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1893 births
1973 deaths
African-American dramatists and playwrights
American women dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
African-American actresses
American stage actresses
20th-century African-American women
20th-century African-American people
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