Award-winning Director Darryl V. Jones directed the world premiere of Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story at the Oakland Opera Theatre in 2009. He has directed off-Broadway and at many leading regional theatres. He has taught at the University of Michigan and currently serves as Associate Professor of Theatre and head of the Musical Theatre Program at Cal State East Bay.
Jones has directed at leading theatres in Washington, DC including the Arena Stage where he directed, choreographed and was associate producer of PlayQuest: The New Play Development Series and the Young Artist 2K Playwrights Festival.
At the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in DC, he directed Paula Vogel’s Minneola Twins. His production of Spunk for the African Continuum Theatre Company was presented at the Kennedy Center and earned him a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Resident Musical. He was also the first director to collaborate with Arthur Miller on changing the Italian-American community to a Dominican-American one for his production of A View from the Bridge for the Source Theatre. For this production Jones won the Washington Theatre Lobby, Mary Goldwater Award for Outstanding Direction. Off-Broadway he directed We Are Your Sisters for the Blue Heron Theatre Company and received an Audelco Award for outstanding production. On Broadway Jones was the assistant director for the musical Play On.
At Cal State East Bay Jones has directed several world premieres of plays by African American playwrights including Xtigone by Chicago playwright/actress Nambi Kelley and Halie: The Story of Mahalia Jackson by New York playwright Wendy Taylor. Xtigone went on to compete at the Kennedy Center College Theatre Festival. In the fall of 2013 Jones will direct the west coast premiere of Follow Me to Nellie’s by NAACP Image Award winning playwright Dominique Morisseau.
Prior to his move to the Bay Area, Jones was Head of the B.F.A. Directing Concentration at the University of Michigan and Foundation Advisor for the BFA Acting Program. While at the University of Michigan, Jones directed The Grapes of Wrath and Balm in Gilead which both received Best Dramatic Production honors from the Ann Arbor News.
Jones holds a Bachelor of Music, Vocal Performance from The Catholic University of America, Benjamin T. Rome School of Music and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the Boston University School of the Performing Arts.