Dr Kathryn Kelly

Biography

Kathryn is a dramaturg and theatre historian and she is currently a Senior Lecturer at QUT in the Acting and Drama area in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Justice (CIEJ). Her research interests include dramaturgy and socially engaged, feminist and transcultural performance practices. She completed her PhD on the Pedagogy of Dramaturgy in 2017 at the University of Queensland and has taught extensively in the last seven years at Institutions including: Western Australian Academy for the Performing Arts (WAAPA), Flinders University, Griffith University, and the Southbank Institute of Technology.

Her publications include a history of Australian dramaturgy 2000-2010 in Catching Australian Theatre in the 2000s (Australian Theatre Series, Bril) as well as with the Theatre, Dance Performance Training; International Journal of Media and Performance; Australasian Drama Studies; Performing Ethos; Body, Space, Technology; Social Alternatives, Fusions and various industry journals. She was a long-time Real Time contributor and continues to mentor young critics and dramaturgs. She has received a Fellowship with the National Library of Australia in 2021, as well as an Indigenous Associate Fellowship (AFHEA) in 2021.

Her current research projects include an international collaboration around climate crisis, The SAND Project. Outcomes from The SAND Project included world premiere performances at the Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM) in February, 2020 and the Tokyo Tokyo Olympic Arts and Cultural Festival in June, 2021;

Rovers Community Engagement which is a project to explore First Nations community engagement models for Australian performance in collaboration with First Nation artists during its nine-stop national tour (2021) after its debut in 2018 at the Brisbane Festival. Webisodes from the project will also air on SBS TV.

Since 2021 she has won $105,000 of external and internal grant funding through QUT, building on decades of grant funding success in the arts and cultural sector. Her dramaturgy practice is in text-based theatre, contemporary performance and socially engaged practice. She is currently company dramaturg and Chair with award-winning, all-female theatre company, Belloo Creative, who are the Company in Residence at Queensland Theatre 2019/2020: www.belloocreative.com and whose adaptation of Kris Olsen's memoir, Boy Lost will be on at Queensland Theatre in late 2022. She has worked for every major festival and theatre company in Queensland; nationally for Theatreworks (Melbourne); Malthouse (Melbourne); Australian Theatre Transforms (Sydney) and the Darwin Writers Centre and internationally for the Factory Theatre and Cahoots Theatre Projects in Toronto, Canada. Formerly, she has worked as CEO of Playlab (2004-2008), Australia’s second largest theatrical publisher and as Resident Artist for World Interplay, which was the largest festival for young playwrights in the world. She has also worked for Arts Queensland and other arts organisations in her twenty-five years in the performance sector. Professional Dramaturgical Credits: Belloo Creative: www.bellloocreative.com and our recent shows include: ROVERS, at NORPA (Lismore NSW) 2018 and Brisbane Festival, on tour in 2020; SAND, a bi-lingual Japanese-Australian physical theatre work with a public outcome at Flowstate at Southbank Parklands in November 2018; HANAKO, a bi-lingual Japanese-Australian work which debuted at the Brisbane Festival in 2016 and MOTHERLAND which was part of the 2016 Queensland Theatre Season, before going on a national tour. She has worked with every professional theatre company in Queensland and with over seventy individual playwrights and independent theatre and performance-making companies nationally. Recent selected credits include Sound of a Finished Kiss, by Katy Wild and with songs from the Go-Betweens, 2018 Brisbane Powerhouse; Alone Together With Me, Dance Massive, Abbotsford Convent, 2019;  The

Rat Trap by Polytoxic, 2013; La Boite Theatre Company: Sunnytown by Krystal Sweedman, 2015, Water Wars by Elaine Acworth, 2013 & Wicked Bodies by Angela Betzien, 2004 and JUTE Seven Deadly Sins by Stephen Carleton, Maryann Butler and five other playwrights nationally, 2005. She has also worked for every major venue in Queensland, including QPAC, Metro Arts, Brisbane Powerhouse, the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts and regional venues across the state as well as Theatreworks and Malthouse in Melbourne. She has dramaturged for the National Play Festival, the Regional Theatre-makers Festival, the Australian Script Centre, StagesWA and Darwin Writers Centre and for Playworks and ANPC (now Playwrighting Australia). She was the Executive Director of Playlab from 2004-2008, publishing twenty-four new Australian plays; Resident Artist with World Interplay in 2005 and she worked in Arts Policy for Arts Queensland in 1999, 2001 and 2009. Publications include a history of Australian dramaturgy 2000-2010 in Catching Australian Theatre in the 2000s published by Brill/Rodopi. Awards: QUT: Vice Chancellor’s Performance Award 2015: Nomination for the QUT Dean’s Award for Sustained Contribution by Sessional Staff 2012; Alrene Sykes Memorial Prize for Australian Literature, 1997. Lord Mayor’s Fellowship for the Performing Arts, 2001.