An American theatre artist whose life’s work centres women who challenge systems of power: political, religious, and cultural. A playwright, actor, director, and educator whose solo and ensemble works explore memory, resistance, and grief.
53
Countries toured with A Single Woman
12
Nevada Arts Council grants
06
Sierra Arts Foundation grants
1989
Founded Nevada Shakespeare Company
She is best known for A Single Woman, her play about Jeannette Rankin, which premiered Off-Broadway at The Culture Project and was adapted into a film featuring Judd Nelson, the voices of Martin Sheen and Patricia Arquette, and music by Joni Mitchell.
The play toured to 53 countries across five continents and earned the Best Theatrical Surprise award from Sacramento News and Review. Jeanmarie performed A Single Woman at CalArts as a Surdna Distinguished Guest Artist.
As a performer, she has appeared in hundreds of solo and ensemble works. She starred in Shakespeare’s Will, directed by Leonard Nimoy, and The Road to Mecca, directed by Tony Award winner Zakes Mokae.
Her global touring credits include Coming In Hot, portraying 19 women in the U.S. military, and HERETIC, The Mary Dyer Story, which she performed from 2011 to 2019. She continues to perform her work in digital and live spaces through Arizona Theatre Matters and Universal Access Productions.
Her recent original plays include Mackers; Lear, a solo adaptation; Ghosts of the Gilded Stage; Bambino Mio, Bright Little Flame, about Maria Montessori, recipient of a Living History Foundation grant; The Jewish Question, awarded Honorable Mention by the Jewish Plays Project; Pineapple and Other Options, featured in the Pandora New Works Festival; and Even Unto Death, about Isabelle Romée, mother of Joan of Arc.
Her second edition collection, When Churchyards Yawn and Other Plays, published by Upstage Left Press in 2026, gathers four of her recent theatrical works.
She has directed dozens of productions and is the Founding Artistic Director of Arizona Theatre Matters, which amplifies underrepresented voices through live and digital performance.
A committed educator and mentor, Jeanmarie has taught workshops and residencies for artists of all ages and abilities. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and is retired from Actors’ Equity Association, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and SAG-AFTRA.
Her creative projects have been supported by six Sierra Arts Foundation grants, twelve from the Nevada Arts Council, and multiple National Endowment for the Arts awards. In 2023, she served as a panelist for the NEA Theatre Grants for Arts Projects.
I write plays to give serious attention to people, questions, and histories that are too often pushed aside.Artist statement
Solo historical drama
Heretic: The Mary Dyer Story
1 performer. 80 minutes.
In a Boston jail cell on the day before her execution, the Quaker martyr Mary Dyer relives loss, motherhood, religious persecution, and the choices…
Toured 2011 to 2019 Read the play
Historical drama
Flight of the Dove
3 performers. 90 minutes.
Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the United States Congress, reflects on her life and her activism. Memory, public history, and a contemporary…
Read the playShakespeare’s dead are not finished with one another. In Purgatory, Hamlet, Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the old king must climb…
In the collection Read the playJeanmarie Simpson does not just expose the experience of life in the military, she humanizes it.Huffington Post
Tenderness is not what I expected from a play based on women soldiers’ writings.Joanna Frueh
Jeanmarie joins productions and courses for talkbacks, workshops and residencies, in person and online. She has taught at UC Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Arizona, Claremont Colleges, Evergreen State College and Naropa Institute.
A short letter when a play is finished, when a production opens, or when new classroom material becomes available. Nothing else.