As the performing arts sector continues to face unprecendented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Arts Centre has responded with Grand Acts of Theatre, an initiative to bring Canadian artists and audiences together.
This past year, fourteen of Canada's most innovative theatre companies were engaged to create and perform large-scale, new works in response to these times, performed outdoors in front of live audiences in various Canadian locations.
Through Grand Acts of Theatre, the NAC invested in the creation of ambitious new work by some of the country's most ingenious artists, reached out to theatre audiences who had been missing the live experience, and is now deepening engagement with a wider audience by sharing the performances online.
For this initiative, NAC English Theatre Artistic Director Jillian Keileyteamed up with Vancouver theatre maker Sherry J Yoon, Artistic Director of Boca del Lupo, as the co-curator of Grand Acts of Theatre. The companies selected by Keiley and Yoon have created highly theatrical, large-scale outdoor work with great artistic impact and broad community reach.
The National Arts Centre now welcomes you to enjoy these performances from wherever you are, with the videos below.
Jillian Keiley has directed and taught across Canada and internationally. She was the founding Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud. Highlights from her 27 years with the company include In Your Dreams Freud, Under Wraps, AfterImage, The Cheat, The Chekhov Variations, and Salvage: Story of a House, Oil and Water, Between Breaths, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and I Forgive You, most of which were featured on tours across Canada including the NAC. Jillian assumed her role as NAC English Theatre Artistic Director in 2012 and finished her tenure in 2022. Other NAC productions include A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, Metamorphoses: Based on the Myths of Ovid and Copenhagen. She also directed Bakkhai, The Diary of Anne Frank, and As You Like It for the Stratford Festival, as well as The Neverending Story and Alice Through the Looking-Glass, both produced as collaborations between the Stratford Festival and the NAC. Tempting Providence, her collaboration with Robert Chafe for Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, toured internationally for 12 years. Her production of Tell Tale Harbour at the Confederation Centre for the Arts was a blockbuster hit at the Confederation Centre this past summer and she looks forward to opening summer productions of Richard the Second at the Stratford Festival and Come From Away in Gander, Newfoundland. Jillian holds Honorary Doctorates of Letters from both Memorial University and York University, and she was the winner of the Siminovitch Prize for Directing in 2004 and the Canada Council’s John Hirsch Prize in 1997.
Metteure en scène primée de St. John’s, à Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, Jillian Keiley est la fondatrice de la compagnie de théâtre Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland. Elle a signé des mises en scène et enseigné partout au Canada, et elle a aussi travaillé à l’étranger. Titulaire d’un baccalauréat en Beaux-arts avec concentration en Théâtre de l’Université York, Mme Keiley a remporté le prestigieux prix Siminovitch (mise en scène) en 2004, ainsi que le prix John-Hirsch du Conseil des arts du Canada, et a reçu des doctorats honorifiques en Lettres de l’Université Memorial et de l’Université York. Jillian est entrée en poste comme directrice aretistique du Théâtre anglais du CNA en août 2012, et les productions qu’elle a mises en scène au CNA comprennent The Neverending Story, Between Breaths, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, Metamorphoses: Based on the Myths of Ovid, Tartuffe, Oil and Water et Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Récemment, elle a mis en scène Bakkhai, The Diary of Anne Frank et As You Like It pour le Festival de Stratford, et ses productions de Tartuffe (CNA) et The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (Artistic Fraud) ont tourné à Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador. Tempting Providence, fruit de sa collaboration avec Robert Chafe pour Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, a tourné sur la scène mondiale pendant douze ans et a été la production inaugurale lors du lancement du Nurse Myra Bennett Theatre à Cow Head, Terre-Neuve, l’été dernier.
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