Derek Anson Jones; Director of ‘Wit’

Derek Anson Jones, 38, director of the New Haven, Conn., and off-Broadway productions of “Wit,” as well as the one that opens Wednesday at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood. A friend since junior high school of Margaret Edson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Wit,” Jones won the 1999 Lucille Lortel Award for direction of the show, as well as a Drama Desk nomination. In a recent interview, he recalled that he was the first to play the role of Vivian Bearing, the professor of literature whose battle with ovarian cancer is at the heart of “Wit.” He did so at a dinner table reading with the playwright and friends, where he was deemed “the most theatrical” of the group. In addition, Jones recently directed “Much Ado About Nothing” and “An American Daughter” at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, as well as “Angelique” for MCC Theater in New York. On Monday, in New York, of complications from AIDS.