Tisch Jones

Jones was born in Oklahoma City.[1] She is the daughter of Geneva Handy Southall, a musicologist and professor, and Patrick Omille Rhone, a dentist and World War II veteran.[2] Her grandfather, Rev. William Talbot Handy, was a Methodist minster, singer, and black landowner who owned Handy Heights farm in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.[3] Her grandmother, Dorothy Pauline Pleasant Handy, was a music teacher.[4] She is the niece of the musician D. Antoinette Handy and of Methodist bishop William Talbot Handy, Jr.[5][6][7][3] She is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Mississippi Supreme Court justice Ephraim G. Peyton and of Mississippi state legislator Emanuel Handy.[3] Jones has described her upbringing and family as Black middle class and "bourgeoisie".[1]

Jones's father died when she was young, and she was raised primarily in New Orleans by her grandparents while her mother went back to school.[1] As a young woman, Jones was involved in the Civil rights movement and was arrested seven times for protesting.[2][8] She was one of the "Orangeburg Twelve", who were pushing to integrate the public high schools in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and was part of the landmark case filed by the NAACP.[1] She attended an all-Black high school in Orangeburg before moving to Iowa City and graduating from Iowa City High School.[2] Jones played piano, and in her youth was ranked as the top pianist in Iowa and the first black all-state pianist from Iowa City High School.[2] In the summer after she graduated, she marched and advocated for voter registration for Black people in Birmingham, Alabama.[1]

She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Arts degree and master of fine arts degree from the University of Iowa.[8][9][1] While an undergraduate student, she was one of four African-American theatre majors, and was taught by the school's first black theatre professor, Horace Bond, who was a cousin of Julian Bond.[1] She performed in a one-woman show named after Sonia Sanchez's Sister Sonji.[1]

Jones worked as an assistant to Lloyd Richards during his tenure as Dean of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.[8] She helped Richards transfer three of August Wilson's plays to Broadway.[8]

From 1993 to 2000, Jones served on the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa as an associate professor in performing arts.[8] She developed an outreach program for social justice and founded the Darwin Turner Action Theatre, which focused on bringing students into classrooms and community centers around Iowa to explore social and political topics.[8] In her tenure in the Theatre Arts department, Jones produced plays written by African-American writers.[8] She co-developed Klub Ka with Jim Hatch, which was a theatre troup that performed in Iowa and in New York City.[8]

Jones joined the faculty as an associate professor of theatre arts, directing, and American theatre history at the University of Iowa in 2000.[9] She taught on the faculty there until 2011, when she became Professor Emeritus.[8]

Jones is the mother of three children, including Patrice E. Jones, a historical preservationist and TikToker, and Anton Jones, a playwright.[3][9]

She is a practicing Christian.[1]