Artist Bio

(Bio as of March 2009)

John Earl Jelks most recently appeared at the Goodman in Magnolia during the 2008/2009 Season. He received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Radio Golf, in which he also toured to the Goodman, McCarter Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Centerstage, Mark Taper Forum and Yale Repertory Theatre. Mr. Jelks also appeared on Broadway in Gem of the Ocean, after having toured to the Goodman, Huntington Theatre Company and Mark Taper Forum, where he won an NAACP Theater Award and an Ovation Award. In 2008, Mr. Jelks won an AUDELCO Award for his work in the off-Broadway revival of The First Breeze of Summer. He has worked in regional theater for more than 20 years in plays such as Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at Penumbra Theatre Company and Missouri Repertory Theatre, The Piano Lesson at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Pill Hill at Chicago Theater Company and Diary of a Black Man at Union Square Theatre and The Shaw Theatre in London. His most recent film work includes Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna and Zeinabu Irene Davis’ Sundance-nominated film Compensation.

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