Kelly Robinson, an acclaimed theatre and opera director, has been appointed the Centre’s new director of Theatre Arts. Robinson began his connection with The Banff Centre as a participant in the dance program, and as his career in theatre grew, his work became integral to the Centre’s performing arts programs, particularly in music theatre and opera. Program director of the Centre’s Opera as Theatre program (a role he will continue), Robinson has directed most of the recent Banff Summer Arts Festival opera productions, including premieres of two original Canadian operas, Filumena and Frobisher.
“The Banff Centre welcomes Kelly Robinson to this new role,” says Sarah Iley, the Centre’s vice president, programming. “He brings an important depth of understanding of the Banff Centre, but also an immense breadth of experience, as a director but also as a producer, choreographer, and dramaturge.”
Former associate artistic director of the Edmonton Opera and Comus Music Theatre in Toronto, Robinson has been the director of creative development at Mirvish Productions for the past 14 years, commissioning and developing work including Evangeline by Ted Dykstra and Brian Crawley, Jane Eyre by Paul Gordon and John Caird, and the new dance musical Vida!, which premiered at Toronto’s Luminato Festival in 2007. As a director and choreographer, he has worked with companies and organizations including the Stratford Festival, the National Arts Centre, CanStage Toronto, and opera companies across Canada and throughout the United States. He also worked for nine seasons as a director and dramaturge at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in New York.
As director of Theatre Arts, Robinson will continue the work of past director John Murrell, who was named emeritus artist-in-residence in 2007. Encompassing dance, opera, and theatre at the Centre, Theatre Arts oversees programming and performances for Opera as Theatre, the Banff Playwrights Colony, new programs in professional dance training, theatre production training programs in design and stage management, a new drama partnership with Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre, new programs for puppet artists and choral singers, and dozens of creative and production residencies annually for dance and theatre companies from across Canada.