NANCY C. JONES

Nancy Jones started her career as a dancer, evolved into a choreographer and ultimately found her métier as a theatre director.  Her work is influenced by a physical approach to performance and admiration for european theatre artists like Simon McBurney, Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Brook, and Denis Podalydès. 

 

Nancy is a Professor at the University of Kentucky Department of Theatre and Dance. Beyond her work on campus, she collaborates with performance artists to translate, create, and produce classic french theatre in her company, Théâtre Farouche. Moliere’s Women (a play she wrote and directed) premiered in 2006 at the Mae West Festival in Seattle, Washington and in Paris, France July 2007. Her work as a Theatre Director has been featured in New York at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, the New York International Fringe Festival, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, the American Living Room Festival at HERE, Immigrant’s Theatre Project, New York Performance Works, New Dramatists, the country’s premiere playwright development organization, and the Actors Theatre of Louisville 24-Hour Play Festival. On UK campus, she has developed many interdisciplinary projects including: Tartuffe and Le Grand Guignol (both cross-disciplinary collaborations with the French Department); El Mundo de los Sueños (a project with Latin American Studies); and Affrilachia (developed with Anthropology and African-American Studies). Her passion for French Theatre led to the development of a UK Study Abroad Program held in Paris, France each summer.

 

Her professional performance career includes Equity Tours, Dance Companies, Television, Commercials and Film. She has received Grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Kentucky Arts Council, is active in the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and sits on the Board of the National Association of Schools of Theatre.

 

Her company, Théâtre Farouche is a collective of artists determined to explore the works of the great French playwrights in translation and adaptation for a contemporary audience. She translated and directed Jean Genet's The Maids, a cross-gender cast production, which was performed at the Bardstown Theatre in Louisville, KY and La MaMa Experimental Theatre, NYC. Nancy translated and directed Ionesco's The Lesson for the Slant Culture Theatre Festival in Louisville. And in August 2015 she brought her translation of Marivaux's The Dispute to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.