ABOUT HEY JONTE!
|
Miranda Jonte (writer-producer) was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her MFA from the Actors Studio in New York, her BA in Theatre & German from Chico State, and studied at the University of Tuebingen in Germany.
After years of being a working actor, she began creating her own work, the result being the full-length play Greasemonkey, in which she originated the role of Mara in its world premiere in NYC (Winter 2013), and for which she was nominated for a Princess Grace Award in Playwriting. Greasemonkey was awarded the Puffin Grant to be adapted in a feature film. It will be shot in and around the Bay Area. Her next play, St. Francis, was a semi-finalist again for Princess Grace in 2015, and in August of 2015, debuted at New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC), directed by Stephen Brotebeck. The play was published in Applause Books' "The Best Plays from American Theatre Festivals 2015" and "Contemporary Monologues For a New Theater" in 2017. It was also performed in Pinole, CA as a benefit for Carr Fire Relief in 2018. Miranda and longtime collaborator Stephen Brotebeck helmed the professional production of John Minigan's Breaking the Shakespeare Code at the Greenhouse Theater in Chicago in June 2014, followed by its New York premiere with the New York International Fringe Festival, August 2014; she also recently played Anna in the 2019 NYC revival of Shakespeare Code. Her one-woman show Good & Kissed premiered at the Midtown International Theatre Fest in NYC in 2017, and was performed at Capital Fringe in Washington DC in July 2019 and as a fundraiser in February 2020 at Firehouse Center For the Arts in Newburyport, MA. Her piece, The Shark Play made it to Final 12 at the Sam French OOB. She sets all her stories in and around the Bay Area. In her spare time, Miranda does road races, pets all the dogs, eats too much junk food, and watches a lot of rom-com. She is a member of both AEA and Dramatists Guild. Her plays can be read on New Play Exchange. |
|
FREQUENT COLLABORATORS
HEY JONTE!'S START
As I was walking through the very large Atlanta airport during a very long layover, I tried my best to find my relative in the very large crowd. He lives in Georgia and was picking me up. I heard someone yell, 'Hey! Jonte!' and around I spun. We ate a lot of steak and drank a lot of wine, and a fine dinner it was.
Hey Jonte! is the suggestion of a very smart relative of mine who saw my burning desire to create and produce my own work and put it on stage, and now, film. Since creating this company I have met like-minded people whose abilities match, and exceed, my own. Stephen Brotebeck's stage direction is without fail, and we continue to collaborate on upcoming projects.
There is a core group of actors (such as Kerry Flanagan, John Moss and Tim Weinert) whom we continue to call upon; their talents and steadiness are wonderful to count on. As we go into our sixth year, our scope has opened up, and in this we have begun to form terrific working relationships with other playwrights whose own work is some of the smartest and most dangerous I have ever encountered. And now, we are branching out into film, adding Dutch filmmaker Jordi Wijnalda and his partner in film collective Blunt Cinema, cinematographer Freek Zonderland.
Our desire is this: to write and champion strong, smart female characters, to highlight the importance of accountability, and the taking on of personal responsibility. The characters we bring to life continue to find themselves in circumstances that are of their own making. Whether they acknowledge this, and what they then do with this knowledge, is what our stories are built on.
Come see what we're made of. We'd love to have you.
- Miranda
Hey Jonte! is the suggestion of a very smart relative of mine who saw my burning desire to create and produce my own work and put it on stage, and now, film. Since creating this company I have met like-minded people whose abilities match, and exceed, my own. Stephen Brotebeck's stage direction is without fail, and we continue to collaborate on upcoming projects.
There is a core group of actors (such as Kerry Flanagan, John Moss and Tim Weinert) whom we continue to call upon; their talents and steadiness are wonderful to count on. As we go into our sixth year, our scope has opened up, and in this we have begun to form terrific working relationships with other playwrights whose own work is some of the smartest and most dangerous I have ever encountered. And now, we are branching out into film, adding Dutch filmmaker Jordi Wijnalda and his partner in film collective Blunt Cinema, cinematographer Freek Zonderland.
Our desire is this: to write and champion strong, smart female characters, to highlight the importance of accountability, and the taking on of personal responsibility. The characters we bring to life continue to find themselves in circumstances that are of their own making. Whether they acknowledge this, and what they then do with this knowledge, is what our stories are built on.
Come see what we're made of. We'd love to have you.
- Miranda