Former Maui resident Rachel Bay Jones appears at the 71st annual Tony Awards on June 7, during which she won a Tony for featured actress in a musical for her role in “Dear Evan Hansen.” Her parents, Dennis and Mona Jones, are Maui residents and longtime owners of health food store Alive and Well. AP photo
Dennis and Mona Jones, longtime owners of Alive and Well, could not have been more proud of their daughter’s journey to the pinnacle of show business.
After 30 years of performing on Maui and in Texas, Florida and New York, Rachel Bay Jones captured her first Tony Award for the Broadway smash-hit musical “Dear Evan Hansen” last month. Nominated for nine awards, the show won six, including Jones’ Tony for featured actress in a musical.
“It was incredible,” Mona Jones said Thursday of watching her daughter accept the award. “You cry and you weep and all of that. She continues to amaze me and always has with her amazing gifts.”
Rachel Bay Jones credited her parents for teaching her acting and “nana” for selling her engagement ring so that Rachel could move to New York, in a phone call after a day of performances Saturday. The award-winning actress fit in the interview with her schedule of eight shows in six days.
“The reality hasn’t really hit me yet,” she said. “I don’t know. I’m sitting at home, and I’ll look at my bookshelf where the award is and I think, ‘Huh, I got one of those now.’ I never thought that would happen.”
Dennis and Mona Jones, longtime owners of the Alive and Well, produced their own musical in 2005 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. The show starred the couple and their now-Tony Award-winning daughter, Rachel Bay Jones.
The Joneses moved to Maui from Florida about 20 years ago with daughter Rachel and son Darren. The family had vacationed on the island several times and “fell madly in love” with the “simplicity of life and beauty of the rainbows,” Mona said.
Rachel, 47, had been “in and out of the business” for years and planned to stay on the island after giving birth to her now-14-year-old daughter, Miranda. However, she never stopped dreaming of Broadway and moved back to the East Coast after a year and a half.
“I still would be there if it wasn’t for this theater bug,” she said of Maui. “If it weren’t for New York City and theater and wanting to be a part of this, I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Mona said she was “thrilled” her daughter decided to move back to the Mainland to pursue her dreams. She said her son got married and stayed on the island to help run the health food store on Hana Highway.
“He never had one bit of interest” in acting, she said. “He did a play in school, and people asked him are you going to be an actor like your parents? He said, ‘No, I’m going to make some money.’
“They’re totally different, and I’m glad they’re different.”
Acting came easily to Rachel — something that can be attributed to her parents’ lifelong career in theater. Both studied performing arts in college with Mona graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where the likes of Robert Redford, Anne Hathaway and Paul Rudd are alums.
Rachel jokes that theater was a religion in the family’s household.
“It really was. They skipped around actual religions, but the one thing that was constant was theater,” she said. “I still feel that way about it. Watching a show and they’re on stage — there’s a perfect moment where all of us in the building feel connected. It feels like church.”
The couple eventually met in 1964 at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn. They performed alongside each other for a number of years and bonded over their bike rides to a health food store several miles away from the festival.
“It was the only place you could get whole-grain bread,” Mona said laughing. “All the other actors would eat junk food.”
Mona later toured with a young Robert De Niro in his first job as an actor in the classic comedy “The Bear.” She worked with De Niro again in the 1968 film “Greetings,” which was “Scarface” director Brian DePalma’s first movie.
Dennis had his own success acting in many “Shakespeare in the Park” productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp — one of the most influential producers in the history of American theater. He also traveled with the first national touring company for the musical classic “Man of La Mancha.”
By 1969, the couple gave up promising careers in show business to start a family and open health food stores on New York’s Long Island and in Puerto Rico. A decade later, though, they returned to the theater and founded a company that brought Shakespeare into schools in South Florida.
Dennis, Mona and their daughter also performed in many plays and musicals in the area, winning more awards than any family in Florida theater history.
“It became a big deal in South Florida. One of us was always on stage, and sometimes we were all on,” Dennis recalled. “It was called the Jones dynasty, and we were the ‘first family of Florida theater.’ I don’t know how they concocted that name, but it was nice to have that bit of notoriety.”
Rachel dropped out of high school to perform alongside her parents and remembered seeing their “passion for theater to change lives and connect people.” She still considers them her “first and only acting teachers” and has repeatedly tried to convince them to teach acting on Maui.
The family produced its own musical in 2005, aptly named “Broadway: Alive and Well,” at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, which starred the couple as well as their daughter.
“They’re still some of the best actors that I’ve ever known,” Rachel said, “and I think seeing them do what they do was so beautiful and was always inspiring to me.”
Rachel said she believes she’s carrying forward the family’s legacy and living their dreams on Broadway. She joked that whenever she lands new roles her mother shouts, “I wanted to play that part.”
“They’re theatrical. They’re expressive. They’re emotional,” she said. “They’ll always be actors.”
Mona recalled numerous stories of her career and what-could-have-beens, but she gave all the credit to Rachel. The parents returned home last week after watching their daughter perform in the consistently sold-out show.
In the musical, Rachel plays the mother of the title character, Evan Hansen, a high school senior with a social anxiety disorder trying to fit in amid the turmoil of a classmate’s death.
“She’s just amazing,” Mona said. “Her talents and voice and incredible acting. The Tonys are the highest honor and with that award you go down in history.”
A barrage of interviews and appearances has followed Rachel since winning the award, but she has remained grounded by her humble beginnings.
“She’s still a homespun little girl,” her father said. “She’s still as personable and unaffected by fame as possible. She’s very humble about it all and wears her crown with dignity.”
Rachel said she performs because she loves people and wants to connect with them.
“There’s an aspect of this business that feels like social work, especially doing a show that’s so beautiful and about such important themes,” she said. “Any way we can spread love is interesting to me, and I’m fascinated by people.”
Rachel said she tries to spend as much time as she can on Maui, visiting a couple of times a year between shows. She said that her new dream is to move back to the island when she retires.
“I feel like if I just collect enough money and make it OK, I can move to Maui and open up a theater and we can all do plays,” she said laughing. “That’s totally the dream. I don’t know when we’ll get there, but that’s the dream.”
* Chris Sugidono can be reached at csugidono@mauinews.com.
Today's breaking news and more in your inbox
The Maui News Maui County Department of Finance Director Scott Teruya was placed on administrative leave on last ...
Holy Innocents Episcopal Church, formerly on Front Street in Lahaina Town and destroyed by the fire, announced the ...
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7rq3UoqWer6NjsLC5jqecsKtfobykrctmpZ6vo2R%2FcX2WaGdwZ5akv66x0Wakmq2ZYr%2Bmv8idnKesXZiurbjSZquopqlixKq6jKKlnKqVmbajuMRo