The National Arts Centre (NAC) has hired a new artistic director for its English theatre department.
Jillian Keiley, an award-winning director from Newfoundland who also began a theatre company called the Artistic Fraud in the province, is taking over from exiting director Peter Hinton this summer.
“There are very few jobs in Canada which I would be prepared to leave home for,” Keiley said in an NAC press release sent out March 24. “The position at the National Arts Centre is one of them, because I believe as the NAC’s Artistic Director of English Theatre I will have the opportunity to do work which will reverberate across the country.”
Keiley has been involved with theatre projects across Canada, Ireland, Italy and Australia. She has worked with the NAC before, and three of her productions have come to Ottawa in recent years.
The NAC's new hire also teaches theatre. She has given workshops, lectures and classes across Canada, including some at the University of Ottawa.
“I would really love the opportunity to create a young company of actors at the NAC, it is certainly one of my goals during my tenure," Keiley said in the release. "To see new theatre, and young careers take flight would be very exciting."
Keiley, who holds a master's degree in theatre from York University and an honorary doctorate of letters from Memorial University, is currently preparing to direct a play in Toronto. The first play she plans to direct as the NAC's English theatre artistic director will be Metamorphoses, a play based off of 10 myths and set around a swimming pool.