Joann Rose Leonard

Joann Rose Leonard, age 75, of Watsonville, peacefully departed this mortal life surrounded by her loving family on December 24, 2019. Born November 17, 1944, in Marinette, Wisconsin, to Sylvia (Axelrood) and Jack Rose, she was raised in Houston, Texas where she began her theatre career as an actress at the Alley Theatre while a student at Bellaire High School.

After high school she continued her theatre training, graduating from Northwestern University and later studying mime with Marcel Marceau in Paris, France. She appeared in numerous national tours and regional theatre productions, returning to the Alley Theatre in 1972 where she met and married her husband of 47 years, Bob Leonard.

After the birth of their firstborn son, Joshua, the Leonards moved to State College, Pennsylvania where Bob taught theatre at Penn State University and Joann founded Metastages, a youth theatre outreach program at the University which she ran for ten years while writing, directing and producing over 50 plays for youth based on multi-cultural myths, legends and folktales and published in three volumes by Baker's Plays.

A second son, Jonathan, was born in State College and when her boys left home, Joann turned to writing full-time, most notably a memoir of her family's escape from the pogroms of Eastern Europe entitled, THE SOUP HAS MANY EYES, published by Bantam Press and a novel called THE HEALER OF FOX HOLLOW, published in 2012.

Joann is survived by her husband, Bob, of Watsonville, her son Joshua and his wife, Alison (Pill) and granddaughter, Wilder Grace of Los Angeles, CA; her son Jonathan of Oakland, CA; and her brother George and his wife, Judy (Robertson) of Baltimore, MD in addition to friends and family too numerous to list, but whose lives she has profoundly impacted with her wisdom and love.

Her spirit will live on forever in the hearts and minds of all who knew her. We remember her favorite quote by Thornton Wilder from his novel, THE BRIDGE OVER SAN LUIS REY, "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

If you wish to donate in Joann's memory, she would have asked you to do an anonymous act of kindness for a stranger. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date in Watsonville.

Published in The Pajaronian · January 1, 2020