NYWIFT Blog

By Lily Della Pietra

Welcome to NYWIFT, Stephanie Lynn Jones!

Stephanie is a filmmaker, TV writer, and multi-disciplinary creative with two decades in screen and stage storytelling. She directed the short doc memoir The Jones Twins: Bebop Souls in a Muzak™ World (BRIC TV) and launched her film career on Spike Lee’s production teams.

An Emmy nominee for Nickelodeon’s Gullah Gullah Island, she has developed her own TV projects with Universal Kids, PBS Kids, and TIME Studios. 

With her twin, Suzanne, The Jones Twins’ performance work has appeared at major venues in NYC and beyond; they also lent their vocals to the Slamdance Festival award-winning film System Noise. Stephanie holds a B.A. from Howard University and an MFA from NYU Tisch.

Read on to get to know Stephanie, learn about her roots in the industry, and get a preview of her short documentary film, The Jones Twins!

NYWIFT Member Stephanie L Jones

Welcome to NYWIFT! Please introduce yourself briefly to our readers.

I’m happy to be a part of this dynamic and important organization. I’m a TV producer, writer, playwright, and performer, and I have just directed my first documentary. I love collaborating with talented people. My favorite collaborator and closest one is actually my twin sis, Suzanne, who is also a NYWIFT member.

What brought you to NYWIFT?

As a first-time documentary director, I wanted to be in community with other accomplished women directors and creatives. I’ve attended NYWIFT events in the past and have gained so much from the programming, networking with the members, and from the positive vibes that are always present.

Stephanie directing BTS

What inspired you to become a director, producer, and writer, and how did you get started in the industry?

For a brief moment in college at Howard University, I was a journalism major, but I quickly realized I was a storytelling artist, a creator rather than a reporter, so I switched to Media and Film. I’ve been hooked on production since, working on film sets with Spike Lee, among others, from right after college. 

I moved into TV producing soon after, working on Nickelodeon’s Gullah Gullah Island. I also studied libretto writing at NYU Tisch grad school, leading me to write musicals and develop and pitch music shows for kids’ TV.

You’ve recently directed the short documentary film, The Jones Twins: Bebop Souls in a Muzak World, which tells the story of The Jones Twins, writer-performers and influencers of the 90s Black performance scene. What have been the most exciting or challenging aspects of working on this project?

This film is a passion project my twin sister and I developed to document and follow the journey we took together as artists. Besides TV and film, I have been a theatre creator and performer almost my whole life. With my sister, I developed original autobiographical performances as The Jones Twins, where we combined music, spoken word, comedy, and movement to make our own performance genre. 

We took part in creating a vibrant Black creative scene in NYC in the 90s with other amazing folks. The short film dips into that scene and highlights our process and also our family legacy, which is kind of a character in our story. It’s so rewarding to document a moment in history that is not widely known, and to calibrate it to resonate with new audiences. 

Most exciting was making this film along with talented family members: my sister, who wrote the narration and performed the voice-over, and my daughter, Emerson, who beautifully edited the film!

The most challenging aspect was directing for the first time and learning as I went! We used a lot of archival footage, an added element that was challenging to work with. I’m super proud of it and can’t wait to do another!

The Jones Twins in action

You have an amazing, diverse background in the entertainment industry. What has been the most fulfilling part of your career so far, and how has each aspect shaped the way you approach your work?

Being an originator of work has been the most important, fulfilling, and vital work I’ve done. Whether it was creating original stage performances and showcasing them all over NYC, writing musical theatre with composers, creating and writing original TV show pitches, or making a film, being an ideator and knowing how to execute that idea in various formats is something I can bring to anything I do.

Stephanie rehearsing stage show

Are there any themes or messages you strive to convey or that influence your work as a director/producer/writer?

From early on, I’ve wanted to tell stories that have not been heard before, through characters and storytelling that break molds. As an artist, I feel that I’ve often worked from – and in – the margins, but the work is based in the human experience and therefore can always be universally received. I also naturally dwell in a place of surrealism, abstractness, and magic. That’s fun for me. That’s where music and abstract language like poetry come in.

Stephanie in performance

Are there any projects you are currently working on or would like to explore in the future?

Currently, I’m working on creating and developing the feature-length version of the story we told in the short film. The creative world we came out of in New York City has so many more fascinating stories to reveal, and our family history is also a huge part of our story and development as artists, so that aspect of the film will be developed more.

Learn more about Stephanie’s shared and individual work at jonestwinslove.com.

(All images courtesy of Stephanie Lynn Jones)