Brown, Janice Oakley Van De Water (1918-1999)
Role: Professor of English and Director of DramaticsDates:
Portrait Location: Lyman Hall 120
Artist: Itchkawitch, Herman ()
Portrait Date:
Medium:
Dimensions: 35 1/2
Framed Dimensions: 40 1/2
Brown Portrait Number: 213
Brown Historical Property Number: 3
Janice Oakley Van De Water Brown (later Janice Sevellon Brown), professor of English and director of dramatics at Brown University, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 18. 1918. She earned a B.A. at Barnard College in 1938, and an M.A. from the Columbia University Teachers College. She started teaching play writing and play production at Brown University's English Department in 1940 (which in 1969 developed a separate concentration in Theatre Arts, which itself became an independent department in 1978.) In 1942, she joined the Faunce House Theatre staff and was appointed associate director of dramatics.
During World War II, while Benjamin Williams Brown (see BP 171) was on leave from Brown for service with the Red Cross, Janice Van De Water Brown and Leslie Allen Jones managed Sock and Buskin, Brown's theater society founded in 1901. During a sabbatical in 1954/55, Van de Water Brown traveled to France, England, the Netherlands and Sweden to read and study plays. Following Benjamin Brown's death in 1955, she directed Sock and Buskin in collaboration with James O. Barnhill (BP 303), until 1963. After Janice Van De Water Brown fell ill with multiple sclerosis, Barnhill became increasingly involved in directing, and later succeeded her as Director of Theatre. Janice Van De Water Brown retired in 1966 and died in August 1999.
Van De Water Brown's portrait was painted by Herman Itchkawitch, who also painted the portrait of her Sock and Buskin colleague, Leslie Allen Jones (BP 214). The two portraits were donated together by former members of Sock and Buskin in 1970.