Janice Jenkins was born in Brooklyn, New York, the fifth of eight children in the loving close-knit family of Walter and Rose Jenkins. She graduated from Roosevelt Junior High School in Long Island, attended Nassau Community College and transferred to Emerson College in Boston where she obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree Cum Laude in Dramatic Arts. Bitten by the acting bug at an early age, her first training came from Maxwell Glanville as a member of the American Community Theatre. She was also a member of the 127th Street
Repertory Company of the Afro-American Studio under the direction of Ernie McClintock and later joined The H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players (Harlem Artists’ Development Leagues Especially for You) under the direction of Ms. Gertrude Jeannette. Ms Jenkins has appeared Off-Broadway and in numerous television shows and films. Her regional credits include the role of Quilly McGrath in John Henry Redwood’s “The Old Settler” at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and the Barksdale Theatre in Richmond Virginia. She is the recipient of two AUDELCO Awards. The first in 1995 for Best One Person Performance in “In Pursuit of Justice” by Wendy Jones, a play about Ida B. Wells, the second in 1998 for Lead Actress in “A Bolt from the Blue” by Gertrude Jeannette.

