‘Soul of a Nation’: Legacy of a Slave

Jac Ford

Jac is an actor and collaborator based in New York City. Raised in Connecticut, Jac traveled south for university where she studied at the University of Virginia (Wahoowa!) and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a double major in Drama and French. Though formal schooling might have ended, she is committed to lifelong theatrical and cinematic study and exploration, particularly through performance, which has already brought her to New York, Massachusetts, London, and France.

At the heart of her exploration (both theatrical and cinematic) is the question: How do we make art that is engaging and accessible to a modern audience captured by fast-moving media and omnipresent cellphone screens? In her quest to find the answer, she has found she is drawn to both new works and reimagined classics especially within the realm of magical realism.

Since her background and training is rooted in theatre, Jac is also deeply interested in what makes American Theatre intrinsically American. In a country that is comprised of countless cultures with their own theatrical tradition, is there such thing as American Theatre? She has particularly investigated this question in not only her performance work but also in her work as a producer.