Author: Jeanmarie Simpson

Jeanmarie Simpson has been a working theatre artist since 1972 and has directed dozens of plays and musicals. She wrote and performed hundreds of times (including Off-Broadway) A Single Woman about Jeannette Rankin, the first US Congresswoman. She performed the piece at CalArts as Surdna Distinguished Guest Artist in 2005 and starred in the film version with Judd Nelson, the voices of Martin Sheen and Patricia Arquette, and Joni Mitchell's music. After winning the Sacramento News and Review's Best Theatrical Surprise award, A Single Woman toured 53 countries on five continents. Tony Award winner Zakes Mokae directed her as Elsa in his 2003 staging of The Road to Mecca, and in 2007, Leonard Nimoy directed her in the US premiere of Vern Thiessen's solo-tour-de force, Shakespeare's Will. She again toured the world with Coming In Hot, playing 19 military women. From 2011-19, she toured globally with her original solo performance HERETIC - the Mary Dyer story. In 2021, her play Pineapple and Other Options played in a Longbeach new works festival and was staged and filmed in Phoenix, and her play The Jewish Question won Honorable Mention by the New York-based Jewish Plays Project. In 2022, she won a Living History Foundation grant for Bambino Mio - Bright Little Flame about Maria Montessori. She is recipient of six Sierra Arts Foundation and twelve Nevada Arts Council grants to artists and a National Endowment for the Arts Theatre grant. Founding Artistic Director of Universal Access Productions/Arizona Theatre Matters, based in Arizona, Nevada, and on the company's YouTube channel, she served on the panel for the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Theatre Grants for Arts Projects. Jeanmarie is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographer's Society, the Dramatists Guild of America, and is retired from Actors Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA