Rose Weaver &
Waterspill Junction
Education Through The Arts
ABOUT ROSE WEAVER
Actress • Singer • Playwright
Rose Weaver is an award-winning creative force whose career spans more than five decades in theater, film, live music, and television.
A celebrated actor, singer, writer, and producer, she has built a legacy as a prominent artistic voice in New England and beyond, with work rooted in performance, storytelling, and cultural impact.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Wheaton College and later completed a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Brown University. She is also a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity.
50+
Years in the art
MFA
Brown University
Stage
Film • Music • TV
Founder
Waterspill Junction
From Simple Beginnings in Georgia
Born on April 19, 1949, into a sharecropper’s family in McDonough, Georgia, Rose was the eldest of six children. As a young girl, she explored the outdoors while her parents worked the cotton fields and other crops to support the family. Her story might have echoed the hardships of many Black children growing up in the pre–Civil Rights South, but Rose forged a different path through education and opportunity.
She was selected to participate in the Emory University Upward Bound Program, living on campus during summers in the late 1960s. There she immersed herself in Atlanta’s cultural institutions—exploring theaters, television stations, museums, historic sites, and monuments. An essay she wrote about her Upward Bound experience won her a trip to Central America, expanding her worldview.
Rose also broke barriers at Brown High School in Atlanta, where—during the era of desegregation—she became the only Black student in the drama club and found success on stage. Her path then led her to the Northeast, where she attended the elite women’s college Wheaton, earning a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature while remaining active in the performing arts.
In 1973, Rose made history once again as the first—and still the only—Black woman to be crowned Miss Foxboro (home of the New England Patriots) in the Miss Massachusetts State Beauty Pageant.
Highlights
Trinity Repertory Company
After college, Rose won a fellowship with the Tony Award-winning Trinity Repertory Company from founding Artistic Director, Adrian Hall. She began her career at Trinity Rep in 1973 as an Acting Fellow, working her way up to leading roles and earning her Actors’ Equity card in 1976. Most recently, Rose appeared on the Trinity Rep stage for a much lauded turn as Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. Prior highlights over the past fifty years acting at Trinity Rep include roles such as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grille, Dussie Mae in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Bernice in The Piano Lesson, the Witch in Into the Woods, The Good Times Are Killing Me, The Waiting Room, Another Part of the Forest, Measure for Measure, Side by Side by Sondheim, Brother to Dragons, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Aimee, A Christmas Carol, Jonestown Express, Tintypes, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Boys from Syracuse, School for Scandal, and From the Mississippi Delta.
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Playwriting & Performance
Rose is the author of the one-woman play Menopause Mama and the full-length scripts Silhouette of a Silhouette, Well Water Blues, At Home With Ethel Waters, Skips in the Record, and Black Women Taking Off the Masks. Other Theatre Credits: Rose has appeared on stages nationwide, including performances at the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America, the Mark Taper Forum, Walnut Street Theatre, the Old Globe, Arkansas Rep, National Theatre Company, and FirstWorks. Selected Film and TV credits include About Fate, The Engagement Plan, The Sixth Amendment, A Snow White Christmas, In the Heat of the Night, Poetic Justice, L.A. Law, Tales from the Crypt, The Accused, Not in My Family, Lady in White, and Go Tell It on the Mountain.
Teaching & Leadership
She has taught at Wheaton College, Rhode Island College, and Moses Brown School, while also mentoring artists and championing creative community-building.
Honors & Impact
Honors & Awards
Rose Weaver’s honors include the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Rhode Island Foundation Black History Month Award, Juneteenth RI Excellence in the Arts Honoree, induction into the Rhode Island Heritage Harbor Hall of Fame, the Lucille Lortel Playwriting Award, GoLocal Providence’s Rhode Island Woman of the Year Award, the YWCA Woman of the Year in Arts & Culture Award, and the Rhode Island Historical Society’s History Maker Award.
Leadership & Community
In service to her professional community, Rose has held multiple board terms with Screen Actors Guild Boston, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts. She is also the creator and curator of the Directory of Black Artists in Rhode Island, a growing platform dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the work of Black creatives across the state.
Grants & Artistic Impact
Rose recently received a Papitto Opportunity Connection (POC) Award supporting research for her newest project on the slave ship Sally and its ties to Rhode Island. She has also received multiple Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowships, Rhode Island Foundation Fellowships, and New Works Awards. Through her writing, performance, and activism, Rose uses the arts as a catalyst for education, social change, and personal transformation—sparking conversations around aging, memory, resilience, and community.
Her activism reflects her unwavering belief in the transformative power of the arts to raise awareness, build community, and inspire self-discovery—at every stage of life.
Learn more: Rose Weaver on Wikipedia