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Judy Simpson Cook is an American playwright, actor, director and producer. She was born Judy Elizabeth Simpson in Lancaster S.C. on February 1, 1949 and grew up in Union County N.C. near Waxhaw, N.C. She attended Jackson elementary school and Parkwood high school in Union County and was graduated from Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. in 1970. She now lives in her renovated home place south of Waxhaw.

At Presbyterian College, she majored in English and obtained sufficient credits for an undeclared minor in Theatre Arts. She taught a couple of years in the Union County school system and discovered rather quickly that teaching was not for her. Following her teaching experiment, she moved to Charlotte, N.C. and worked in the office of an insurance agency, at a radio station, at a public relations firm, at a major retail chain central office, a film production and distribution company, and eventually at as a talent agent at JTA Talent where she spent fifteen years.

At the same time as she searched to find her professional niche, she auditioned for multiple plays at various local theatres with varying but not spectacular success. She was ready to give up the acting bug – which she had since childhood – when she was cast in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at Theatre Charlotte. There she met fellow actor Terry Bryan who was playing Nurse Ratched to her Nurse Flynn. Over the course of their rehearsals and performances together they commiserated and bemoaned the lack of good female roles available and together decided to write a play for all female performers. As this was also at the height of the 1970s women’s movement and the fight for women’s equality with the Equal Rights Amendment, they originally planed to gather monologues from famous women in history such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Soujourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Seneca Falls Convention and weave them together for a play. Judy and Terry started gathering material and writing interstitials to tie everything together. They soon realized that they didn’t really need the source material as their material was taking on a shape of its own. They enlisted local composer Jeanne Colgan Phillips to join them to compose original music for the show. The result was Revolution Without Casualties which went on to tour in the Southeast with its all-women cast of young and old, black and white, actors and dancers. This experience in 1976 became the genesis work of Judy Simpson Cook, playwright.

After the success of Revolution Without Casualties, Judy wanted to write a play by herself without a collaborator and wrote a couple of one-act plays. Based upon characters she had created for fun while working at JTA Talent, she wrote her first solo full-length play, Country Songs, which was produced by Changing Stages Productions and played in Charlotte, Columbia, S.C. and in the annual Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C. in 1986.

Since that beginning as a playwright, Judy has written 36 plays including one-acts, full-lengths, and other theatrical pieces including an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for three actors, and 7 monologues in her Women of the Bible series. In 1986. her play, Nuptials was the 1^st place winner of The Thompson Theatre NCSU Playwright Award in the professional category. In 2003 Judy as honored as the North Carolina Play Writing Fellow for that year.

In addition to her play writing, In 1981, Judy was a founding member of The North Carolina Stage Company professional theatre in Charlotte. Several years later, she was recruited to become Executive Director of the Mint Museum Theatre, a long-time theatre fixture in Charlotte which had fallen on hard times, to resurrect it. Unfortunately, its full demise was immanent.

After moving back to her home town of Waxhaw in 2005, Judy formed The Storefront Theatre and still serves as its Executive and Artistic Director. The Storefront Theatre is a readers theatre and in 2023 began its 16^th season. As part of The Storefront Theatre season is We Like Short-Shorts, an annual 10-minute play competition and festival which draws hundreds of submissions from across the US and Canada. This festival celebrated its 10^th year in 2023.

As an actor, Judy has appeared in numerous motion pictures and television shows with well-known stars such as Jason Robards, Natalie Wood, Christopher Walken, Ruby Dee, Rosanna Arquette, and (when they were both much younger) she played the mother of Brad Pitt in a made-for-TV movie. As a talent agent she represented numerous actors and received honors from The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for her contribution to the “Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries or Movie” Emmy Award for “From the Earth to the Moon” miniseries.

Judy continues to be involved in the regional performing arts community and continues to perform and write plays as the spirit moved her.

Characteristic of Judy’s plays are the “realness” of the characters and the humor that arises even within her most serious plays. Most of her comedies have a serious, thoughtful, underlying theme that gives the audience something to ponder and explore after they leave the theatre.

The plays of Judy Simpson Cook (as of September, 2023):

Revolution Without Casualties (with Terry Bryan and Jeanne Colgan Phillips)
Baby Talk
Inside Straight
A Novel Romance
Ailunthus Altissma
Country Songs
Earline
Sweepstakes
Appogiatura: the life of Nannette Streicher neé Stein a Vienne (one woman play) (with Karen Hudson Brown)
Cerulean Blues
Nuptials
Retrieving the Lamb
Benedictions
1963
Tweaks
Maw-Maw’s House of Talent (aka Starstruck)
Godspeed, John Glenn
Triptych
Andrew Jackson: A Majority of One (one person)
Lois Collins Sims: A Century in Waxhaw (one person)
Gladys (one person portrait of Gladys Tillet)
The Aurelia Women’s League Flower and Garden Show Gala Planning Committee
After A Fashion
Independence Day Parade
The View From the Porch
Running on Empty
The Fragrance of Books
A Christmas Carol: adapted for three actors
Women of the Bible: Mary, Mother of Jesus (monologue)
Women of the Bible: Elizabeth (monologue)
Women of the Bible: Martha (monologue)
Women of the Bible: Woman at the Well (monologue)
Women of the Bible: Eve (monologue)
Women of the Bible: Bathsheba (monologue)
Women of the Bible: Mary Magdalene (monologue)