Repertory Theater of Iowa

RUTH ANN received her BA in Drama from Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa and her MA in Dramatic Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Since 1971, she has been the drama director at East High School in Des Moines and a drama instructor at Des Moines Area Community College, Urban Campus. She acted with the Langston Hughes Company of Players for 8 years and produced and hosted her own radio and television programs for Mediacom and WHO for twelve years. Ruth Ann played Bessie Delaney in Having Our Say, Rosa Parks in Rosa Parks and other leading roles at the Des Moines Community Playhouse. She joined RTI in 2005 and played Twyla in Twyla’s Boy and Directed Crowns in 2006. Currently, Ruth Ann is the theater director at the Fort Des Moines Museum and recently directed and played Mama in A Raisin in the Sun and directed three radio dramas- Home for the Holidays. She is also traveling around the state portraying Zora Neale Hurston in a one woman play that she wrote entitled Queen Zora. Ruth Ann was the 1998 Iowa teacher of the year, and one of four finalists for national teacher of the year. She is an inductee of the National Teacher’s Hall of Fame, the Iowa African American Hall of Fame and the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. She is also a winner of the Martin Luther King Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award.