Jean Battlo

Teresa Jean Battlo (July 4, 1939 – August 3, 2024) was an American playwright from West Virginia. She is known for writing plays on Appalachian themes and history, which have been performed in several states.

Life and career Battlo was born and raised in Kimball, in McDowell County, West Virginia. Her parents were Italian immigrants who moved to West Virginia to work in the coal mines. After attending Welch High School in Welch, Battlo earned a B.A. and an M.A. at Marshall University where she studied history, drama, and literature, and minored in philosophy.

Battlo established the Globe Stage in McDowell County, which is a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Critical response and awards Scenes from Battlo's plays Frog Songs and Shakespeare: Love in Series were included in Linda Pinnell's textbook Getting Started in Theater.

The House on Second Street was a finalist in the 1998 Forest-Shiras Competition. The play #8 was a finalist for Camel-Sea and a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwright's Competition in 1990, and was optioned by Off-Broadway Stage Arts.

Her plays have been performed throughout Appalachia. Companies that have staged Battlo's works include: the Tennessee Stage Company, the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theater in North Carolina, and Theater West Virginia and the Charleston Stage Company, both in West Virginia.

Battlo won awards in 1997 and 1998 for her earliest books of poetry, Bonsai and Modern Haiku.

In 1992 she was nominated for and awarded the Italian-American Woman of the Year honor.

Published works Plays 8 Caves Frog Songs A Highly Successful West Virginia Business The House on Second Street The Little Theater's Production of "Hamlet" The Morning Glory Tree Of Freckled Human Nature Shakespeare: Love in Series, co-authored with Alma Bennett The Terror of the Tug Voltaire's Confession

Other published works Bonsai Modern Haiku Pictorial History of McDowell County The Mahotep Synod Appalachian Gothic Tales McDowell County in West Virginia and American History Behold the Man