John Bush Jones

John Bush Jones (August 3, 1940 – December 31, 2019) was an American author, theatre director, critic, educator and scholar. He taught theatre for more than two decades at Brandeis University and wrote widely about musical theatre, publishing several books.

Early life and education
Jones was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1940. He described himself as a child of the World War II home front, having just turned five, eleven days before the Surrender of Japan. His experience influenced his writing career, and is reflected in his books. ""my sensory memories great and small of my life on my own home front of Chicago's North Shore suburbs have remained a part if me ever since ... a formation of bombers passed low over my house, opened their bomb bay doors, and dropped thousands of colored handbills featuring the familiar logo of the Minute Man and the equally famous "'BUY WAR BONDS!"'"

- John Bush Jones

He received an undergraduate degree in Speech (Theatre), with Distinction, from Northwestern University in 1962. He earned his Ph.D. from Northwestern in 1970. Jones married Sandra Pirie Carson, whose family commissioned architect Louis Sullivan to design the Carson Pirie Scott & Co. store in downtown Chicago. They were married for 10 years before divorcing and had one son, Aaron Carson.

Career
Jones reviewed drama for the Kansas City Star and taught English at the University of Kansas before joining the faculty at Brandeis University in 1978, in the Theater Arts Department. He received the 1995–1996 Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

At Brandeis, Jones served on the organizing committee for many years of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. He directed numerous plays and musicals both at Brandeis and in professional theatre, including Ruddigore, Uncommon Women and Others and She Loves Me. He retired from Brandeis in 2001.

Articles


An archive of Jones' works is available at the Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University Libraries.