Johnny Jones

Johnny Jones is currently serving as the Scholar/Artist-in-Residence for Westmont College’s Department of Theatre Arts. Along with teaching Great Literature of the Stage and Race, Gender, and Ethnicity on the American Stage, Johnny will also direct the NEXUS Staged Reading Series this fall at Westmont. Johnny has taught in multiple areas and disciplines, including English, African American Studies, and Theatre Arts. Johnny’s scholarly and creative focus includes modern to contemporary African American theatre and black narratives in media. His peer-reviewed publications, university theatre productions, and performance compositions cover a range of topics and subjects from Muhammad Ali to Hip-Hop Studies, cable television drama, and Marvel’s Black Panther. His college productions, including Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop and Dominique Morriseau’s Detroit ’67, have been performed at national festivals (ACCelerate Festival for Creativity and Innovation; National Black Theatre Festival) and focus on specific historical and social contexts of African-American life in American society. Along with this fall’s residency, Johnny will be publishing scholarship and also serving as a researcher for the Wilsonian Warriors project for the August Wilson Society and as a scholar for the Hurston on the Horizon Summer Institute with the National Endowment for the Humanities.