Portrait of Emrys M. Jones, Department of Drama, 1945-1973.

Bio/Historical Note: Emrys Maldwyn Jones was born 14 September 1905 in Dowlais, Wales. In the late 1920s Jones took a train north from Edmonton to the terminus at Waterways where he worked aboard vessels that would eventually take him north to the Mackenzie River Delta. Jones earned his BA in 1931 from the University of Alberta. After graduation he taught high school in Edmonton until 1939, when he returned to the University of Alberta in 1939 where he combined employment as a drama instructor with his graduate studies. He earned his MA in 1943 and spent the next two years studying at Cornell and Columbia universities on a Rockefeller Fellowship. In 1945 Jones joined the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan as professor and head of the Department of Drama. He was the first full professor of drama to be appointed at a Commonwealth university. During his career Jones educated hundreds of students, directed dozens of plays, and advanced the dramatic arts on the national stage by founding the Canadian Theatre Centre in 1956. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (London) in 1971 and named Professor Emeritus upon retirement in 1973. [Jones died in 1973]. In 2008 Dr. Dwayne Brenna of the U of S published an illustrated history of the Greystone Theatre, entitled Emrys’ Dream: Greystone Theatre in Photographs and Words. Jones was founding director. The Emrys Jones Studio Theater in the John Mitchell Building at the U of S is named in his honour.