Jeanmarie Simpson

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...
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 multiple National Endowment for the Arts Theatre grants. Founding Artistic Director of Universal Access Productions/Arizona Theatre Matters, based in Arizona 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

Plays

  • When Churchyards Yawn
    All the dead Hamlet characters have graduated from Limbo to Purgatory. Seems there’s been a bit of a backlog. Hamlet Senior is ancient and over it. Polonius is befuddled, as ever. Rosencrantz feels like a nit wit, Guildenstern blames Rosencrantz. Ophelia is innocent and furious, Gertrude is spitting mad. Claudius is contrite to the point that you want to smack him. When Churchyards Yawn asks the question - will...
    All the dead Hamlet characters have graduated from Limbo to Purgatory. Seems there’s been a bit of a backlog. Hamlet Senior is ancient and over it. Polonius is befuddled, as ever. Rosencrantz feels like a nit wit, Guildenstern blames Rosencrantz. Ophelia is innocent and furious, Gertrude is spitting mad. Claudius is contrite to the point that you want to smack him. When Churchyards Yawn asks the question - will all these fatally flawed characters ever make it to Heaven?
  • The Jewish Question
    It's the day of the biggest political demonstration in Los Angeles history. A million people are marching from Venice to downtown. Grace is putting the finishing touches on the sabbath meal as Rebecca and Ash, a photojournalist and reporter, arrive from the march. Ash is bleeding, Rebecca is exasperated, and Grace is excited to see her niece again. A classic Kitchen Table play, THE JEWISH QUESTION...
    It's the day of the biggest political demonstration in Los Angeles history. A million people are marching from Venice to downtown. Grace is putting the finishing touches on the sabbath meal as Rebecca and Ash, a photojournalist and reporter, arrive from the march. Ash is bleeding, Rebecca is exasperated, and Grace is excited to see her niece again. A classic Kitchen Table play, THE JEWISH QUESTION confronts, examines and embraces age-old misunderstandings, stereotypes, and culture. Plus, there's red wine and homemade bread.
  • Pineapple and Other Options
    Drenching rain pummels Nimipuu County as Helen, an idealistic middle-aged American History educator, sits alone in her kitchen recovering from a double mastectomy and looking at a pile of bills and an employment termination letter. What makes more sense than suicide? Newly retired social worker and rookie crisis hotline volunteer, AJ sits alone in the office desperate to save Helen from herself. As Helen slips...
    Drenching rain pummels Nimipuu County as Helen, an idealistic middle-aged American History educator, sits alone in her kitchen recovering from a double mastectomy and looking at a pile of bills and an employment termination letter. What makes more sense than suicide? Newly retired social worker and rookie crisis hotline volunteer, AJ sits alone in the office desperate to save Helen from herself. As Helen slips between the worlds after eating a huge assortment of pills, Elizabeth “Betsy” Pennington greets Helen and takes her on a journey designed to convince her to return and invent a new kind of educational model. Pineapple and Other Options braids the stories of three women into a – literally – constructive theatrical experience.
  • A Single Woman
    A powerful, dramatic and timely play about the funny, brilliant, warm, irascible, scrappy woman who voted against both World Wars — in Congress. Tens of thousands have seen the play in theatres, meeting halls and living rooms throughout the world. ENSEMBLE VERSION
  • Heretic - The Mary Dyer Story
    The play takes place in the last moments of the life of Quaker Mary Dyer, "Mother of the First Amendment," executed by the Puritan Church/State Government in 1660 Boston. The play is honest, painfully graphic and uncompromising in its storytelling. Reviews are uniformly raves and audiences love it.
  • Bambino Mio - Bright Little Flame
    It's Maria Montessori's 70th birthday. She is on house arrest at the Theosophical Society compound in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India. As an Italian citizen, she is considered an "enemy" of the British colonial government. Her assistant, Githa, takes notes as Maria remembers the early days when she was in medical school and when she began her practice as a doctor and her research...
    It's Maria Montessori's 70th birthday. She is on house arrest at the Theosophical Society compound in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India. As an Italian citizen, she is considered an "enemy" of the British colonial government. Her assistant, Githa, takes notes as Maria remembers the early days when she was in medical school and when she began her practice as a doctor and her research with "deficient" children that led to her revolutionary educational approach. The play exposes Maria's most intimate thoughts and the secret she carried with her for seventy years.

    The story of Maria Montessori is a microcosm of many of the factors that shaped women's experiences in Victorian Europe. Further, her tireless work continues to challenge commonly-held notions about childhood, learning and education to this day.