John O’Neal’s career bloomed during the civil rights era, when he and his theater group, the Free Southern Theater, were on the cutting edge of a controversial movement that today seems inconceivable it is so engrained in our daily lives. After nearly 50 years, he reached the end of his trail when he retired from his post as the artistic director of Junebug Productions.
O’Neal was born on September 25th, 1940 in Mound City Illinois. His career as an activist and an actor began upon his graduation from Southern Illinois University in 1962 which led right into a position as the Field Secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating committee in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1963 he and Gilbert Moses began a drama workshop at Tougaloo College in hopes of addressing the artistic needs of the African American community of the South. This movement quickly developed into the Free Southern Theater, a “theater for those who have no theater.”
With the Free Southern Theater, O’Neal traveled throughout rural Mississippi and Louisiana performing plays that supported and spread the message of the civil rights movement, to those who had previously had little exposure to theater or equal rights movements. In exchange, the civil rights movement provided support in the form of donations and audiences. According to O’Neal, the first donation they received was a $15 check from Langston Hughes. In pursuit of a more consistent audience, the group moved to New Orleans in 1965, a bigger town with a bigger black middle class.
The troupe continued to perform plays which promoted black nationalism and community engagement, sometimes adapting well known plays for their own purposes, sometimes performing plays written by well known black playwrights, and sometimes putting on plays written by John O’Neal. Among the plays he has written are Hurricane Season; Where is the Blood of Your Fathers; When the Opportunity Scratches, Itch It; and a cycle of plays featuring Junebug Jabbo Jones. Junebug Jabbo Jones was featured in the final work of the Free Southern Theater, in a one man play performed by John O’Neal. Jones is an old storyteller and witness to the inequalities of the old and new South, his voice spoke to those whose story was still largely untold. Junebug Jabbo Jones followed the civil rights theater movement and John O’Neal through the end of the Free Southern Theater in 1980 and its evolution into Junebug Productions that same year. His was the last story told by the Free Southern Theater, and the first by Junebug Productions.
John O’Neal founded Junebug Productions and became the artistic director continuing the mission of the Free Southern Theater, with a new name and new cast. John O’Neal was in charge of selection of the pieces performed by the company and continued to choose works that helped to support and encourage the development of performing arts among the Southern African American community. He also initiated the collaboration for the Color Line Project, which was meant to document and present the stories of the civil rights movement with the help of Junebug Productions. John O’Neal remained the artistic director of Junebug Productions until his retirement in 2011. His 48 year career as an activist and dramatist resulted in resulted in numerous awards and recognitions including the Louisiana Artist’s Fellowship in Theater, a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and an award and grant from the Ford Foundation. His career also yielded two major production companies that play crucial roles in the past and present of the African American theater movement.
Sources:
http://academics.hamilton.edu/organizations/kirkland/oneal.html
http://www.crmvet.org/info/fst1.htm
http://junebugproductions.blogspot.com/
http://www.knowla.org/entry.php?rec=664
http://www.leadershipforchange.org/awardees/awardee.php3?ID=52
http://www.thepeoplesayproject.org/john-oneals-junebug-productions/
http://www.thepeoplesayproject.org/the-people-say-1-3-theatre-andrew-vaught-john-oneal/
Actor and stage director John O’Neal earned a BA degree from Southern Illinois University in 1962. Upon graduation he became a Field Secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. From this involvement came the Free Southern Theater, which began as the Tougaloo Drama Workshop, founded by O’Neal and Gilbert Moses at Tougaloo College in 1963, and grew to become a theater of national significance. Situated in New Orleans in 1965, the Free Southern Theater combined a touring repertory company, a community engagement program in New Orleans, and training workshops in Black Theater. (Often, communities touched by the touring Theater developed their own Black Theater programs.) FST’s purpose was “to use theater as an instrument to stimulate the development of critical and reflective thought among Black people in the South” and to support the efforts of those involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The FST expired in 1980. That same year O’Neal organized Junebug Productions, an arts organization based in New Orleans which he now serves as Artistic Director. Junebug Productions operates a nationally acclaimed touring theater company, a presenting program and a community cultural development program in New Orleans.