Margaret V. "Margo" Jones
Livingston, Polk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Livingston native Margo Jones was one of the leading figures of American theatre during her brief life. A director and innovator, she played a key role in the careers of many actors and playwrights, most notably Tennessee Williams and William Inge; The Glass Menagerie and Inherit the Wind were among the Broadway shows she directed. She was an advocate for non-profit professional residential theatres and theatre-in-the-round, and she carried out her ideas both on Broadway and in her Dallas theatre. Named one of the Outstanding Little Theater Directors in America, she also organized the Houston Community Players. She died in Dallas in 1955, but her influence continues today. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Livingston native Margo Jones became one of the most influential figures in mid-twentieth-century American theatre, championing nonprofit regional theatre and the theatre-in-the-round staging she pioneered in Dallas. She guided the careers of Tennessee Williams and William Inge, directing Broadway productions including The Glass Menagerie and Inherit the Wind, and organized the Houston Community Players. Named one of the nation's outstanding little-theater directors, she died in Dallas in 1955, but her model of resident professional theatre endures.
Why it matters
Jones helped invent the American regional-theatre movement, breaking Broadway's monopoly and opening the way for professional theatre to thrive in cities across the country.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Margo Jones came out of Livingston, Texas, and rose to prominence in the middle decades of the twentieth century — an era of enormous change in American theatre. For generations, professional theatre in America had meant essentially one thing: Broadway, in New York City. If you wanted to see or make serious professional theatre, you went there. The rest of the country made do with touring companies and amateur 'little theatre' groups.
The years spanning the Progressive and modern eras into the postwar decades were a time of restless creativity in the American arts. New playwrights were finding distinctly American voices, and reformers were beginning to ask why the professional stage should belong to a single street in a single city.
Into that question stepped a Texan with big ideas. Jones believed serious, professional theatre could — and should — put down roots in cities far from Broadway, sustained not by chasing hits but by a nonprofit model built to last.
People & events
Jones was a director and an innovator, and by all accounts a force of nature during a life cut short. She organized the Houston Community Players early on and was named one of the outstanding little-theatre directors in America — recognition that she was reshaping the field, not merely working in it.
Her influence on individual careers was profound. She played a key role in the rise of two of the century's most important playwrights, Tennessee Williams and William Inge. Among the Broadway productions she directed were 'The Glass Menagerie' and 'Inherit the Wind' — works that endure on stages to this day. To have guided premieres and productions of that caliber places her at the very center of mid-century American drama.
But her boldest idea lived in Dallas, where she built a theatre to prove a point. She was a champion of the nonprofit, professional, resident theatre and of theatre-in-the-round, staging plays with the audience seated on all sides of the action. She carried these ideas out on Broadway and at home in Texas alike. She died in Dallas in 1955, still young, but the model she pioneered outlived her.
Its place in the American story
Margo Jones is remembered as a founder of the American regional-theatre movement — the wave of professional, nonprofit theatres that took root in cities across the country and broke Broadway's long monopoly on serious drama. Because of the path she and her contemporaries cut, a family in almost any major American city can now see professional theatre without traveling to New York. That is a genuine democratization of an art form.
Her nonprofit, resident model reframed what a theatre was for. Instead of a commercial venture living or dying by a single show's box office, she envisioned a permanent institution devoted to the art itself — an idea that underpins nonprofit arts organizations nationwide today.
And her fingerprints are on the plays themselves. By nurturing writers like Williams and Inge and helping bring works such as 'The Glass Menagerie' and 'Inherit the Wind' to the stage, she helped shape the very canon of American theatre. Her career is also a landmark in women's history — a woman wielding rare creative authority in a field that seldom granted it.
If you visit
This memorial in Livingston honors a hometown figure whose reach extended to Broadway and to theatres across the nation, so let it prompt a bit of imagination rather than a search for a stage. You're standing where a small-town Texas childhood set an extraordinary life in motion.
Think of the marker as an invitation to look up her legacy the next time you settle into a theatre seat. If you've ever seen a play performed in the round, with the audience wrapped around the actors, or attended a resident professional company in your own city, you've encountered ideas she helped pioneer.
On a Polk County history drive, this stop offers a change of key from the usual roadside fare — a reminder that a rural Texas town produced a national force in the arts. Pause here and consider how far an idea can travel from where it started, and how one determined person can reshape an entire art form.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Margo Jones
- · Tennessee Williams
- · William Inge
Themes & tags
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