Margo Jones, 1913-1955

An Inventory of Her Papers

Historical Note

Margaret Virginia Jones was born on December 12, 1913, to Richard H. Jones and Martha Pearl Collins of Livingston, Texas. She received the nickname Margo while a student at Texas State College for Women and was known as Margo Jones in her professional life. She began study at TSCW at the age of 14, graduating from that institution with a master's degree in psychology in 1932. She immediately went to work at Louis Veda Quince's Southwestern School of Theater in Dallas in a position she described as "glorified office girl." After a year in Dallas, Margo Jones attended the Pasadena Playhouse for the summer of 1933 and then assumed her first full directorship with the Ojai Community Players of Ojai, California. After a year at Ojai she had the opportunity for international travel as the companion of a wealthy woman, attending theaters all over the world.

Upon her return to the United States in 1936, Margo Jones became an assistant director of the Federal Theater in Houston. The project folded after a few months, at which point Jones traveled to the Moscow Arts Festival, financing her trip by covering the event for the Houston Chronicle. Jones returned to Houston in the fall to begin work with the Recreation Department of the city; as part of her program she organized the Houston Community Players. In the summer of 1939 the Community Players leased the air-conditioned ballroom of the Lamar Hotel in which to perform. Out of necessity, since the ballroom lacked a stage or proscenium, Margo Jones staged her theater in the round. Under Jones' direction, the Players gave the world premiere of Edwin Justin Mayer's Sunrise in My Pocket and attracted some national recognition through its review by Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times.

In 1942 Margo Jones left Houston to direct summer theater in East Hampton, New York. She joined the Drama Department of the University of Texas in September of that year with the conviction that the University was a place where theater could continue to operate at professional standards during wartime. She remained in Austin from 1942 to 1944, but took several leaves of absence to direct other theaters. In 1943 she staged You Touched Me by Tennessee Williams and Donald Windham at the Cleveland Playhouse. She took the play to the Pasadena Playhouse and while there also directed Theodore Apstein's Sporting Pink and the premiere of Apstein's Velvet Touch. In 1944 she returned to Pasadena to direct The Purification by Tennessee Williams.

In that same year she was granted a fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation to study the possibilities for a permanent professional theater in Dallas. However, after only three months of study Jones received an invitation to co-direct another Tennessee Williams play with Eddie Dowling. She discontinued the fellowship in order to work on The Glass Menagerie, which opened in Chicago in December 1944 and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945. In spring 1945 Jones returned to Dallas to follow through on her plan to organize a local professional theater. The project was launched almost immediately with a generous check from Ms. And Mrs. Eugene McDermott, but due to difficulties such as finding a suitable building for theater in post-war conditions, the theater was not officially opened until November 1947, with the premiere of William Inge's Farther Off From Heaven. In the meantime, Jones directed two other Broadway productions: On Whitman Avenue, by Maxine Wood which opened in May 1946, and Joan of Lorraine, by Maxwell Anderson which opened in November 1946.

Margo Jones' permanent professional repertory theater dedicated to the staging of new plays and classics was a pioneering effort of professional regional theater. Due to limitations in building and budget, Jones used arena staging or "theater-in-the-round," for her productions. Jones' work in Dallas theater attracted critical acclaim and box office success, and earned her an international reputation. Margo Jones wrote a book on the history and methods of arena staging titled, Theatre-in-the-Round. Eight of the played she produced in Dallas eventually reached Broadway. Two of them she directed herself in New York: Summer and Smoke in 1948 and Southern Exposure in 1950. Another, Inherit the Wind, was a hit on Broadway at the time of Jones' untimely death from uremic poisoning on July 24, 1955.

Margo Jones and the theater she founded in Dallas were pioneers, which earned national and international recognition with a policy of performing only classic or previously unproduced plays using a professional repertory company of the highest caliber and innovative theater-in-the-round staging. The Margo Jones Theatre in Dallas was a milestone in the growth of regional theater.

The theater, which she founded, continued after her death, but its success declined, and after a brief transformation to traditional proscenium staging the Margo Jones Theatre closed in December 1959.

The Margo Jones Theatre was originally incorporated under the name Dallas Civic Theater, Inc. It was also called Dallas Theater, Inc., in early materials soliciting pledges. Moreover, from the very beginning, Jones envisioned the name of the theater changing each year in accordance with the current calendar. Each year at midnight on New Year's Eve, the sign on the theater's marquee changed to the new date, so that Theater '50 became Theater '51 and so on. After her death, Jones' name was added to the title, and the theater proclaimed itself Margo Jones Theatre '55. At the beginning of the 1959-60 season, when the theater merged with the Maple Theater and abandoned arena staging, the name became Margo Jones Theatre. Bank accounts were held concurrently under both the Dallas Civic Theater and Theatre '50 names; the former for holding funds and the latter for current operating expenses.

The Theatre faced continuous difficulties in finding and maintaining suitable housing. Ultimately, problems of finances and management outweighed its critical successes, and the theatre closed in 1960.

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Scope and Contents

The Margo Jones Collection consists of the daily working files of the Margo Jones Theatre, as well as Jones' personal records and correspondence. Her personal correspondence dates to the mid-1930s, but the bulk of the collection dates from the inception of the Theatre in 1945 to its close in 1960.

The collection includes correspondence; photographic prints and negatives; set and costume-design renderings; scripts, including approximately 131 unproduced play scripts; scrapbooks; play bills and programs; magazine and newspaper clippings; contracts and other financial records; and box and office statements. Jones' personal records include income tax materials; life insurance policies; a daily journal; and materials relating to her speaking engagements, television appearances, and publications.

Of particular interest in the correspondence files are letters from Rockefeller Foundation, Gulf Oil Corporation, Joanna Albus, Tad Adoue, Rosamund Gilder, Billy Goyen, Vera Matthews Marshall, Billie Baker, Violet Burch, Mabel Duke, Arthur Kramer, Jr., and Jonathan Seymour. Despite Jones' involvement with the early career of Tennessee Williams, there is little in the collection that sheds light on the playwright. A manuscript copy of his poem "The Sunshine Special or the Silver Victrola," his one-act play Side Light on a Convention, and an inscribed copy of A Streetcar Named Desire are included in the collection.

Additionally, materials for other Dallas-area theaters are a part of the collection, including, the business records for the Maple Theater just prior to its merger with the Margo Jones Theatre, and the Round-Up Theater, an all-black theater group for whom Jones directed its first play, Walls Rise Up.

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Restrictions

Restrictions on Use

Play scripts, for both produced and unproduced plays, may not be photocopied.

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Related Material

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

MA62-1 Margo Jones Collection, 1936-1960. Texas/Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library

Acquisition Information

Once the theater ceased operations in 1960, its business files were placed in storage at Southern Methodist University. The collection came to Dallas Public Library in December 1961, when it was donated by Arthur Kramer, Jr., the last president of the Dallas Civic Theatre (Margo Jones Theatre).

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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