Born in Livingston, Texas, Margo Jones grew up as an energetic child who knew what she wanted to do from an early age. Her older sister died when she was 11 years old, and according to her biographer, that's when she became the woman her older sister wanted and she wanted to move on from Livingston. At age 15, she attended Women's Technical College (now Texas Women's University) in Denton. She wrote a dissertation on Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, which foreshadowed her life as a theater pioneer in Dallas and the world.
After studying theater on trips from near DFW to Japan and England, in 1939 Stage magazine named her one of the 12 greatest directors outside of New York, and she was listed on its list. She gained notoriety as the only woman. She met playwright Tennessee Williams early in his career and helped him gain national critical attention. She directed the premiere of Williams' The Glass Menagerie.
Inherit the Wind, about the 1925 Tennessee Scopes trial that decided whether teachers could teach Darwin's theory of evolution, was rejected by eight Broadway producers. She would continue her play in the fundamentalist southern heartland, and the Dallas review praised the play. The production was quickly picked up by Broadway, and over the next few years she would perform 806 times.
She used the fame that ensued to open her first non-profit resident theater in Dallas as part of her goal to build a network of theaters outside of Broadway. Its first performance, known as the Dallas Civic Theater, took place in 1947 at Theater '47 in the Gulf Oil Building at Fair Park. This was the country's first professional theater in the round, with a minimal set on stage and an audience surrounding the players. The company was also one of the few professional theater companies outside of New York.
In 1953, Jones helped found an amateur black theater company called the Roundup Theater in still-segregated Dallas, where he directed plays performed in his own theater. She broke color lines when she invited a mixed audience to the opening night of the Roundup. Roundup actor Ernest Wallace describes Jones in the documentary about her life, Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theater. “She had no problem mingling with us. It's very easy to tell if someone with a different skin color has a problem mingling with us. I knew I wanted to do it.”
In 1955, she also directed the premiere of Inherit the Wind, about the 1925 Tennessee Scopes trial that decided whether teachers could teach Darwin's theory of evolution. Eight Broadway producers turned down the play. She produced and directed the play in the heartland of the fundamentalist South, and the Dallas review praised the play. The production was quickly picked up by Broadway, and over the next few years she would perform 806 times.
Known as the “Texas Tornado,” Jones wanted to “build tomorrow's theater today,” and helped advance the careers of many actors and directors, especially creating a play about evolution before Broadway even touched it. Inherit the Wind” was produced. In 1955, she was poisoned by chemicals used to clean carpets when the regional theater movement was in full swing, and she tragically died. Her legacy lives on today through SMU's Margo Jones Theater and her more than 300 non-profit resident theaters that have followed in her footsteps across the country.
author
Will is a senior editor at D CEO Editor of the magazine “D CEO Healthcare”. He writes about healthcare…
