Samantha
Jones'
professional
acting career began in 3rd
grade playing a street urchin in The
Trinity
Players'
production of A Christmas
Carol.She was hooked.Her early creative life
included four years of professional training at
Neighborhood Playhouse, then an additional four
years at the highly competitive High School of the
Performing Arts in NYC.The ABC Special, What You Need
to Know, introduced her to film acting
followed by Steve Alpert Productions' Manhattan
Monday which aired as in-flight
entertainment across America.Through
all this, she worked backstage mostly on sound
alongside her two sisters on her Mother's plays
which were variously produced by New Voice, The
Mint and on the emerging Theatre Row.The
stage kept calling her.She originated the roles of
Hildy in John Ford Noonan's Green
Mountain Fever and Susan Smoke in Debbie
Jones' Jeremy
Rudge.
Jones
found the beginnings of her serious work at SUNY
New Paltz and it was comedy.She
produced and performed in Midnight
Theatre - a weekly venue she expanded
campus-wide that encouraged creative, original
work.When she returned to New York, she threw
herself into the standup comedy scene and found
herself placing in the Toyota Comedy Festival
right out of the gate.She improvised the original
role of Lucretia Crabtree under the direction of
Darin DePaul for the newly founded Jekyll &
Hyde Clubs.She then created and performed her first
solo show, I'm
in
Charge
of the Coats, atHere
Arts Center and that was an idea that had been
coming for a long time.This is when her best friend
from high school, Julie Zinkewicz, invited her
into Living
Room
Live
-
a weekly sketch comedy show uptown at the Parlor.Here
she worked with her sisters creating sketches and
solo characters almost on demand week after week
and performed with the company to packed houses.Her
original characters:The Pretty
Dancer, So and So, and The Ren'
Fair Worker along with her improvised
sketches for Jack Black's
Acceptable TV have received thousands of
views on YouTube.
Always the
driver of her own collaborative work, directing
was an inevitable result. Jones
established, directed and performed in 7 sketch
comedy groups.The
Mugshots was improvisational sketch for the
Columbia Crowd; The Personality Inventory brought
together comics Jones had worked with and gave
space for all the characters that kept coming out
of her head; Please Stand
By was a 30's radio show - intentionally
gone wrong. Jones
took
up
the guitar with Crazy
PotatoE - a Folk Goth' Sister-Brother Comedy
band.Her
work
as
a solo performer resulted in four
one-woman shows which have been selected for
prestigious festivals such as SolaNova.She
developed and directed Penny Pollak's No Traveler in
New
York
for
the Frigid Festival, in Scotland for
Edinburgh Fringe and in Canada for The Winnipeg
Fringe Festival.In New York, Jones has become the go-to
director and acting coach for solo performance and
Backstage namedher
improv class "Best in New York 2012".Returning
to
legitimate
theatre, Jones directed Horror Play by
Jeannine
Jones
for the NYC Sticky Festival and Game Point by
Julia
Gytri
at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre.
Jones was
the right person to produce the low-budget
production of the play, The
Breezeway, at The American Theatre for
Actors in New York; the feature film, The Last
Christmas Party(shot in New York); and
the book, Tales of
Wonder from the Garden State, which is
a finalist in the USA Best Books of 2011.She has
written prolifically for Amuze:Raw
Art Now; Wino:One woman's Quest for the Finer Things;
The Real Samantha Jones; www.yesand.com
and www.independantartists.com.
Along her
way, Jones served as SAG representative for The
New York Coalition of Professional Women in Arts
and Media, became a member of Alpha Psi Omega,
SAG/AFTRA and Equity and is a founding partner of
Dora Mae Productions. Volunteer work includes City
Harvest, Artists for the Cure, Gilda's Club and
Legacies.Additionally,
she
has
worked with students on improvisational
sketch for the holiday shows at the Center School,
a NYC public middle school.Jones
is the grateful recipient of the highly-esteemed
Gold Award given by the Girl Scouts of America.
As
a
director
as well as a performer, Jones' vision
is to bring real stories to life on the
stage. Her multi-faceted approach mines
individual experience for universal truth.
She knows that personal stories developed within
improvisation have the weight and spontaneity to
make audiences laugh out loud - with the
performers and at themselves. Jones is all
about PLAY. She believes the lost art of
childhood is improvisation. The joy of
imagination explodes across the stage when Jones
is in charrge.
Dora
Mae
Jones
(3/1/91-9/6/01)
Dora was
the real star of Dora Mae Productions. She lived
on the Upper West Side for 10 years. She enjoyed
long walks in the Ramble, warm naps in the sun,
good company, and squeaky toys with faces! She
is deeply missed and will always be our muse.