A Jones for Talent

OFF BROADWAY SENSATION SARAH JONES

On a dark Manhattan stage embellished only with graffiti, a coatrack, and a microphone, Sarah Jones brings to light some very timely issues. With the full force of her almost six-foot frame and little more than a change of jacket, Jones inhabits 14 different immigrants from Haiti, Pakistan, China, and beyond, whose sometimes sad, often hilarious stories make up her hit one-woman show, Bridge & Tunnel. "It's such a poetic story—certainly more theatrical than much of what is written for the theater—to pick up everything you can gather with you and against incredible odds manage to find your way to this country," says the 29-year-old Queens native, who started performing at poetry slams at New York's Nuyorican Poets Cafe (where she met Steve Colman, her writing partner and fiance) shortly after leaving Bryn Mawr College. It wasn't long before scouts from MTV offered her a shot at the Hollywood game—which she eventually walked away from. "I'm not big on the whole 'bitches and ho' humor. I'm not a prude. I want to hear everything. But I'm tired of hearing just one thing." So she came back to New York, where her refreshing brand of streetwise, intelligent humor has recently been attracting some famous fans. Late last year, Meryl Streep came on board to produce the show, and soon Sarah Jessica Parker, Barbara Walters, Lou Reed, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Sean Combs were lining up to see it. There is a TV show in the works for Bravo, and rumors of a move to Broadway next year. What are her plans for her latest foray into television? "I want to do what some of my heroes like Lily Tbmlin were able to do a generation ago_Above all, it's got to be funny."

ANNE FULENWIDER