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The Playwrights’ Center 2006 Annual Report

		a longtime friend for whom our theater is named, passed away recently. His legacy includes a stronger, healthier home for the playwrights of America. If you wish to make a donation in his memory, use the form below. Thank you for choosing to honor Waring's passion for art and theater with your tax-deductible gift.

Waring Jones (1928-2008)

Waring Jones, a Twin Cities area writer and theatrical producer and notable benefactor of the local theater scene and libraries and museums around the country, died peacefully in his sleep after a long illness last Thursday, January 10. He was 80 years old. The son of Carl Jones, publisher of the Minneapolis Journal (which eventually merged to become the Star Tribune) and grandson of Herschel Jones whose extensive collection of prints and Old Master paintings is in the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, he grew up in a highly creative environment which inspired him to pursue a life in theater and literature. While serving in the Army in 1946, he became an announcer for Armed Forces Radio based in Hawaii, using one of the first ever long-range radio stations to broadcast to occupied Japan and throughout the Pacific. After graduating from Princeton University on the GI Bill, he was for several years the editor and publisher of the Hokah Chief newspaper in southern Minnesota, before joining Academy Award- winning filmmaker Louis De Rochemont in New York to work on notable documentaries such as Cinerama Holiday and The March of Time series. He then joined HM Tennant, a theater production company in London, and was a producer of several hit plays including On Golden Pond, Godspell, and The Constant Wife, starring Ingrid Bergmann. He subsequently moved back to Wayzata, and devoted himself to Twin Cities art and theater, most notably by reviving the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis which was instrumental in nurturing the early careers of successful playwrights like August Wilson, Lee Blessing and Paula Vogel. The Center also put on half a dozen of his own plays and musicals. The Center honored him by naming its main theater after him. As an avid art collector, he was a prominent supporter of the Walker Art Center and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Like his father and grandfather before him, he had a keen eye for collecting rare books, manuscripts, and paintings, and his collection of 20th century literature and Northern Impressionism were especially notable. His home became a popular destination for bibliophiles, scholars and writers from around the world. He eventually donated much of his extensive collection to found the Ernest Hemingway Museum and Birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois and the Jack London library in the Waring Jones Reading Room in Sonoma State University. He is survived by two sons, Henrik Jones (San Francisco, CA) and Finn-Olaf Jones (Los Angeles, CA), a daughter, Benedicte Hallowell (Brookline, MA), eight grandchildren, and former wife, Yoyo Tesdorpf Jones (Cambridge, MA) and former wife, Lucy Rosenberry Jones (Wayzata, MN).Any donations can be directed to the Playwrights' Center or Westminster Church.