Biography

 

Paul Janes-Brown
Anchor/Reporter
Maui TV News

Paul Janes-Brown has spent most of his working professional life of 35 years with not for profit organizations. Most were arts organizations. He was instrumental in convincing the U.S. Dept. of Labor to recognize artists as a viable segment of the labor force, thus qualifying millions of dollars in Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) funds to flow to artists and arts organizations in the mid ‘70s. The arts employment program he designed was recognized as one of the most innovative in America and a replication study was commissioned.

As the first coordinator of Cultural Affairs for the City of Hartford, Connecticut he was responsible for developing, administering and implementing the City’s Arts Policy, this included the commissioning of a significant public work of art for the Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum by Romare Bearden through the National Endowment for the Arts Art In Public Places Program.

He went on to serve as the development director for the Artists Collective, an African-Caribbean-Latin American performing arts presenting, performing and training organization under the artistic direction of Charlie Parker protégé Jackie McLean. There he initiated a capital fund drive for a new arts center, more than doubled their unearned income and developed cooperative, accredited arts programs with the Hartford Public Schools.

In 1989 he went to New York City to become managing director of the Phoenix Theater, a resident professional (Actors’ Equity Association) summer stock company. Members of this company included, Michael Patrick King, executive producer “Sex in the City,” Tracy Poust, executive producer “Will & Grace,” Peter Francis James, noted African American Broadway, Television and Film actor, and Charles Busch’s muse the late Meghan Robinson. He was succeeded in the position by Michael Kaiser, CEO of the Kennedy Center.

He was a general partner in Bare Bones Production, LP, a professional acting company in New York’s SoHo district. In it’s short two years of existence, the first play the company produced was awarded a Samuel French publication prize. Bare Bones produced nine world premieres of new American playwrights and brought a play to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1994. Also they presented the acclaimed production of the Moscow Theater Company’s “Tverboul” the Fringe First winner of 1993 off Broadway in the famed Provincetown Playhouse.

In 1995 Mr. Janes-Brown directed the very well received world premiere of Anthony Braxton’s first Opera “Trillium R--Shala Fears for the Poor.” Mr. Braxton was a 1994 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award.

Mr. Janes-Brown left New York for Maui in 1997 and promptly joined the Maui Symphony Chorale, Maui Madrigale and was cast in several plays. From 1999 to 2007 he wrote visual arts criticism for the Maui News and became the paper’s performing arts columnist in 2000. He received a fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts to attend the Institute for Dance Criticism at the American Dance Festival in 2005; the only journalist in Hawaii to ever receive the honor.

He was the managing director of Maui Academy of Performing Arts until 2007 and oversaw the establishment of Stepping Stone Playhouse, retired the organization’s debt and increased their budget by 20%.

Besides doing on camera work for Maui TV News, he writes features and reviews for the Maui Weekly, OnMaui Magazine and The Lahaina News.

He has a bachelors degree in English and Theater from Central Connecticut State University and an M.Ed from Anitioch University.