Jeanmarie Simpson (born November 20, 1959) is an American theatre artist and

peace activist A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pea ...

best known for writing and starring in the 2004 play '' A Single Woman'', and its 2008 film adaptation, based on the life of first US Congresswoman,

Jeannette Rankin Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate who became the first woman to hold federal office in the United States in 1917. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representa ...

Early life

Simpson was born in Ray,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. Her parents were Maria Luisa Jugo, a Venezuelan immigrant, and Donald Leroy Simpson, an American mining engineer. She is the great-granddaughter of Carlos López Bustamante. She was raised in

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...

. Her family's move to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada in 1970 led to her theatre training.

Career

She was founding artistic director of the Nevada Shakespeare Company for which she directed many acclaimed productions and played iconic characters including

Maude Gonne Maud Gonne MacBride ( ga, Maud Nic Ghoinn Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríghde; 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. Of Anglo-Irish descent, she was won over to Irish nationali ...

and Lady Macbeth. She retired from the company in 2008. Simpson appeared in the American premier of the one-woman play, ''

Shakespeare's Will William Shakespeare's last will and testament was signed on 25 March 1616, just under a month before his death. The document has been studied for details of his personal life, for his opinions, and for his attitudes towards his two daughters, Su ...

'', by Canadian playwright,

Vern Thiessen Vern Thiessen (born c. 1964) is a Canadian playwright. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Thiessen studied at the University of Winnipeg and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. He later attended the University of Alberta, where he obtained a Master of ...

. The production was presented by Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, California, and was produced by

Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy (; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the '' Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series in 1966, th ...

and directed by Susan Bay. In one of his few American directing projects, Tony Award winner,

Zakes Mokae Zakes Makgona Mokae (5 August 1934 – 11 September 2009) was a South African-American actor of theatre and film. Life and career Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to the United Kingdom in 1961, and to the United States ...

cast Simpson as Elsa in Athol Fugard's '' The Road to Mecca'' in 2003.The production was a collaboration between the Nevada Shakespeare Company and the Nevada Conservatory Theatre, based at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. She starred in the

film version A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...

of her play, '' A Single Woman'', based on the life of Jeannette Rankin. The film was produced by Heroica Films and directed by

Kamala Lopez Kamala Lopez is an American filmmaker, actress, writer, director, and political activist. She has had starring roles in '' Black Jesus'', ''Medium'', ''24'', ''Alias'', ''NYPD Blue'', ''Hill Street Blues'', ''Miami Vice'', and ''21 Jump Street''. ...

, a cousin of Simpson's. Though the project includes the voices of many celebrities, including

Martin Sheen Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. He first became known for his roles in the films ''The Subject Was Roses'' (1968) and ''Badlands'' (1973), and later achieved wid ...

Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cro ...

Judd Nelson Judd Asher Nelson (born November 28, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as John Bender in ''The Breakfast Club'', Alec Newbury in ''St. Elmo's Fire'', Joe Hunt in '' Billionaire Boys Club'', Nick Peretti in ''New Jack Cit ...

and

Patricia Arquette Patricia Tiffany Arquette (born April 8, 1968) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987). Her other notable films include '' True Romance'' (1993), ''Ed W ...

and includes in its soundtrack the iconic Joni Mitchell songs "

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aq ...

" and " The Circle Game", the film has not been picked up by a distributor, nor has it had a theatrical release. Simpson was unhappy with the film, and in October 2011 she is quoted in the Huffington Post saying of it, "That's probably the biggest disappointment of my life." Jeanmarie Simpson and Judd Nelson

In September 2009, Simpson opened in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

in the one-woman show, ''Coming In Hot,'' based on the book ''Powder: writing by women in the ranks from Vietnam to Iraq.'' The show subsequently toured extensively, and garnered praise and also a fair amount of criticism by peace activists who thought it glorified war. On July 4, 2012, Simpson presented at the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Isla ...

a reading of her play, ''Heretic - The Mary Dyer Story,'' about the life of

Mary Dyer Mary Dyer (born Marie Barrett; c. 1611 – 1 June 1660) was an English and colonial American Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. ...

, a Quaker hanged in Boston in 1660. In January 2015, it was announced that Simpson would tour the UK and Europe with ''Heretic,'' presented by The Leaveners. The play was subsequently filmed with an ASL interpreter on camera and Simpson's voice. Titled ''Heretic - the Mary Dyer story'' the film may be viewed at no cost on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

with subtitles in 110 languages. On September 16, 2012, a story in the '' Arizona Daily Star'' featured quotes by Simpson. The article focused on an art exhibit that was to have been presented at the Quaker Meeting house in Tucson. The artist was Danny Jones, a death-row inmate in Arizona. Among other things, Simpson was quoted saying, "We want to illuminate the fact that he is a human being. He is not his crime... He is an artist. He is a man with the ability to see beauty and to create beauty." The show was subsequently canceled, when it was discovered that it was scheduled on the same day as the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. In December 2012,

was quoted saying of her, "Simply put (and nothing about her can be put simply), Jeanmarie Simpson is a bright, enthusiastic, and powerful performer and an even more gifted and inspiring writer. Those two tenants living side-by-side within her are not natural brethren. Neither of them are given much to supplication, nor have a natural instinct for compromise. But, amazingly, they are able to co-exist within her, because they are secondary to Jeanmarie's elemental conflict: the struggle between her huge heart and her mighty mind, between impression and fact, between situational ethics and absolute truth. You and I, the outsiders, the spectators watching, we are the lucky ones able to receive her wisdom, and courage, and truth, and hope, and grace. Ultimately, I believe Jeanmarie to be one of humanity's invaluable resources."

Activism

Jeanmarie Simpson is a Lifetime Member of the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...

(WILPF), serving as treasurer of the US Section as of March, 2016. She has been a pacifist and human rights/peace activist since 1984, when she observed the disparity between the wealthy and socio-economically challenged members of society while working as a Special Projects Coordinator for Consolidated Agencies of Human Service in

Hawthorne, Nevada Hawthorne is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mineral County, Nevada, United States. At the 2010 census, the population was 3,269, a decrease since the 2000 census, when it was 3,311. It is the county seat of Mineral County. The nearby Hawtho ...

. After

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

, Simpson, a "self-described artivist," retreated from traditional theatre and began creating biographical works, political in nature, based on the lives of historical women. Several political commentaries by Simpson can be found on ''Common Dreams''.

Personal life

Simpson is the mother of Domenic Francis Stockton, Donald Paul Stockton and Emily Maria Harbaugh. She is the grandmother of Casey Joel Stockton, Wesley Bradon Stockton, William Christopher Stockton and Walker Wolfgang Kilgore-Stockton. She remarried her first husband, Daniel Bishop, on August 28, 2015. The two were first married on July 24, 1976.

Current activities

Simpson is one of the founders and the artistic director of Universal Access Productions/Arizona Theatre Matters, based in Phoenix, Arizona and Reno Nevada. Simpson's play about Mary Dyer was filmed with an ASL interpreter on camera and Simpson's voice. It is available on

, subtitled in 110 languages. Her play, ''Pineapple and Other Options,'' was produced and filmed in November 2021 and is in post-production as of September 2022.

References

External links

Official Website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Simpson, Jeanmarie 1959 births Activists from Arizona Activists from Toronto American stage actresses American socialists Socialist feminists Living people American anti-war activists American pacifists Feminist artists American emigrants to Canada American women dramatists and playwrights People from Pinal County, Arizona People from Ray, Arizona American Quakers American people of Venezuelan descent Actresses from Arizona Actresses from Toronto Pacifist feminists Writers from Arizona Writers from Toronto Women's International League for Peace and Freedom people Quaker feminists 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses