MARGARET VIRGINIA (MARGO) JONES – A TIMELINE

December 12, 1911 – – Margaret Virginia Jones is born in Livingston, Texas, to Richard Harper and Martha Pearl (Collins) Jones.

1933 – – Jones graduates from the Girls’ Industrial College of Texas (now Texas Woman’s University) in Denton, Texas.

1933-34 – – Jones works and studies at the Southwestern School of the Theatre, Dallas.

1934 – – Jones studies directing at the Pasadena Playhouse Summer School.

1935 – – After directing at Ojai Community Theatre, Jones makes her first trip abroad. Upon her return, she’s hired as assistant director of Houston Federal Theatre Project.

1936 – – During her second trip abroad, Jones visits the Moscow Art Theatre Festival. The same year, she founds the amateur Houston Community Players, which she directs until 1942.

1942 – – Jones joins the theater faculty at the University of Texas in Austin. That year, she meets playwright Tennessee Williams.

1943 – – Jones directs You Touched Me by Tennessee Williams and Donald Windham at the Cleveland Play House (October) and the Pasadena Playhouse (November).

1944 – – Jones directs Williams’ The Purification in Pasadena. She co-directs the Chicago tryout of The Glass Menagerie.

1945 – – The Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway. The Dallas Civic Theatre is incorporated, but does not open until 1947.

1946 – – Jones directs Maxine Woods’ On Whitman Avenue on Broadway. During a Washington, D.C. tryout, Jones is fired as director of Maxwell Anderson’s Joan of Lorraine.

1947 – – Dallas’ nonprofit professional theater opens as Theatre ’47.

1948 – – Jones produces and directs the Broadway production of Williams’ Summer and Smoke.

1949 – – The Alley Theatre in Houston is professionalized under director Nina Vance.

1950 – – Zelda Fichandler founds the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

1951 – – Margo Jones’ book Theatre-in-the-Round is published.

1954 – – Mary John, the third pioneering woman to take inspiration from Margo Jones’ example, co-founds Milwaukee Repertory Company.

1955 – – In January, Margo directs the world premiere of Lawrence and Lee’s Inherit the Wind in Dallas.

July 24, 1955 – – Jones dies in Dallas after being accidentally poisoned by chemicals used to clean the carpet in her apartment. On July 27, Jones is buried in Livingston, Texas.

1961 – – Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee establish the Margo Jones Award.

1960s – – The regional theater movement expands across the country with financial support from the Ford Foundation. New theaters are founded in Minneapolis, Seattle, and dozens of other American cities.

1969 – – Margo Jones Theatre opens at Southern Methodist University.

1982 – – Texas Woman’s University opens Margo Jones Performance Hall in Denton, Texas.

1989 – – Helen Sheehy publishes her biography Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones (SMU Press).

2006 – – KERA’s documentary Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theaterairs on PBS stations nationally.