Hey folx 👋🏽,

I am Jocelyn Prince, the Creator of Theater Folx of Color. TFOC is a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices and work of BIPOC theater artists in an affinity space. I am so grateful to the intergenerational collective of Black women who helped organize and establish this group on Facebook in 2018, which has grown to 14K+ members. 

Over the past two decades, I have worked across the theater industry as an administrator, dramaturg, consultant, educator, and teaching artist. I am a neurodivergent, cis-gendered Gen X Black woman from the South Side of Chicago.

I've had the great fortune to live in a variety of places over the years, like New York City, New Haven, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Washington, DC. I am currently based in the desert oasis that is Las Vegas. 🌵 My work has included collaborations with a variety of regional and national institutions, such as The Public Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, Cleveland Play House, Yale Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, The Broad Stage, Court Theatre, eta Creative Arts Foundation, The Field, The Kennedy Center, Rattlestick Theater, The Opportunity Agenda, New York Theatre Workshop, Theatre Communications Group, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

I have held faculty appointments in the Theater Management department at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and at Northwestern University, where I taught in the performance studies, theater, and rhetoric undergraduate departments, as well as in the Master of Science in Leadership for Creative Enterprises program. I was also a co-founding Artistic Director of The New Black Fest in New York City.

You can read my writing in The Chicago Reporter, American Theatre, Nonprofit Quarterly, African-American Review, TimeOut Chicago, TimeOut New York, and Howlround. I co-authored “Honk for Justice,” a chapter in Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity, with Dr. Harvey Young, reflecting on a 2020 durational performance protest I led in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

In addition to my work in the theater, I've staffed several presidential campaigns in field organizing roles in Iowa, Ohio and Nevada – Obama ’08, Clinton ’16, and Harris ’20 and ’24. I have a B.A. in Journalism from Bradley University and a M.A. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.

Most importantly, I am proud dog mom to Malcolm (X) and Zora (Neale Hurston), two rescue dogs from Paws Chicago and The Animal Foundation. — follow their adventures on Instagram at @zora.thedoggy and @malcolm.thedoggy.  #DogMom 🐶🐾

I love coffee, ice cream, reality TV, horror films, desert sunshine, running, hiking, 90s alternative music and Broadway show tunes.

In these turbulent times, I’m committed to championing, amplifying, and celebrating BIPOC voices in the theater.

Onward,

JP

jocelyn@tfoc.net