Judith "Jude" Pamela Kelly, (born March 1954), is a British theatre director and producer. She is a director of the WOW Foundation, which organises the annual
Women of the World Festival
Women of the World Festival (WOW, WOW Festival) is an annual arts and science festival based in London, that celebrates the achievements of women and girls, as well as looking at the obstacles they face across the world. As a global feminist mov ...
, founded in 2010 by Kelly. From 2006 to 2018, she was
Artistic Director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
of the
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge).
It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...
in London.
Early life and education
Jude Kelly was born in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
,
and her love of theatre dates back to her childhood there, where she would put on plays in her backyard with the neighbours' children: "I've always had a passion for telling a story," she has said. She attended Calder High School for Girls, until she was 13, when it became part of
Quarry Bank Comprehensive School, where she was taught by
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
's old headmaster, William Pobjoy, who encouraged his pupils to be creative. Already determined to become a director, she chose to study drama at
The University of Birmingham
, mottoeng = Through efforts to heights
, established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...
, one of a small number of single honours degree courses available at the time. Kelly graduated with a BA in Drama and Theatre Arts from Birmingham in 1975 where she was a contemporary of comedienne, writer and actress
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over se ...
.
Career
Kelly founded Solent People's Theatre, a touring company, in 1976, and was artistic director of the
Battersea Arts Centre
The Battersea Arts Centre ("BAC") is a performance space specialising in theatre productions. Located near Clapham Junction railway station in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, it was formerly Battersea Town Hall. It is a Grade ...
from 1980 to 1985. She became the founding director of the
West Yorkshire Playhouse
Leeds Playhouse is a theatre in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Having originally opened in 1970 in a different location in Leeds, it reopened as West Yorkshire Playhouse, on Quarry Hill, in March 1990. After a refurbishment in 2018-20 ...
from 1990 to 2002, where as Artistic Director and then CEO she established it as an acknowledged centre for excellence. As the Artistic Director, she sat on the National Advisory Committee for Culture, Creativity and Education (NACCCE), led by
Ken Robinson, that in 1999 wrote the ''All Our Futures'' report, which led to significant government investment in young people's creative and cultural education.
She has directed more than 100 productions, including for
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya
John Hidalgo Moya (5 May 1920 – 3 August 1994), ...
, the
English National Opera
English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English ...
(ENO), the
Châtelet in
Paris, France
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, and London's
West End.
Kelly left the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2002 to found Metal Culture, providing artistic laboratory spaces in Liverpool,
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
and
Southend
Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...
, funded by
Arts Council England
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...
and local authorities. Metal provides a platform where creative hunches and ideas can be pursued; it promotes cross-art collaborations and projects to affect the built environment, people, communities and philosophies.
Among her many successes as a director, Kelly's production of ''
Singin' in the Rain
''Singin' in the Rain'' is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charis ...
'' transferred to the
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT), is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. I ...
as one of the National's visiting productions and was awarded the
Laurence Olivier Award
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as ...
for Outstanding Musical Production in 2001. She directed Sir
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. His career spans seven decades, having performed in genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Regarded as a British cultural i ...
in ''
The Seagull
''The Seagull'' ( rus, Ча́йка, r=Cháyka, links=no) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises t ...
'' and ''
The Tempest'',
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actor ...
in ''
Johnson Over Jordan
''Johnson Over Jordan'' is a play by J.B. Priestley.
''Johnson Over Jordan'' focuses on Robert Johnson, a meek businessman who has recently died. Now in limbo, Johnson looks back over his life while trying to reach the Inn at the End of World. On ...
'' and ''
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
'',
Dawn French
Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show ''French and Saunders'' with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunde ...
in ''When We Are Married'', and the English National Opera in ''The Elixir of Love'' (South Bank Award – Newcomer Opera) and ''On the Town'', which was the ENO's most successful production at the time, ''
Carmen Jones
''Carmen Jones'' is a 1943 Broadway musical with music by Georges Bizet (orchestrated for Broadway by Robert Russell Bennett) and lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II which was performed at The Broadway Theatre. Conceptually, it is Bizet's o ...
'', and ''The Wizard of Oz'' at the refurbished
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...
. Kelly directed
Paco Peña
Paco Peña (born 1 June 1942) is a Spanish flamenco composer and guitarist. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional flamenco players.
Biography
Born in Córdoba, Spain, as Francisco Peña Pérez, Paco Peña began learning to pl ...
's ''Flamenco sin Fronteras'' in 2009.
In 2006, she became
Artistic Director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
of the
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge).
It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...
in central London,
Britain's largest cultural institution.
[Brown, Mark]
"Southbank Centre artistic director Jude Kelly to step down"
''The Guardian'', 19 January 2018. The Centre consists of the Royal Festival Hall, the
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Roy ...
,
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten.
The ...
(containing the
Purcell Room
The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats. The Purcell Roo ...
), and the
Saison Poetry Library. Southbank Centre also manages the
Arts Council Collection
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...
and organises the
National Touring Exhibitions
National Touring Exhibitions is a programme managed and funded by Arts Council England that aims to provide access to high-quality contemporary and historical travelling exhibitions throughout the UK. The programme organises 2-3 major art exhibiti ...
programme in venues throughout the UK. Kelly's decision to step down as Artistic Director after 12 years, in order to devote herself to WOW, was announced in January 2018.
Her 2018 production of
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
's ''
MASS
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
'' at the Royal Festival Hall was described by one critic as a "wasted opportunity".
Kelly's talk at a 2016
TED
TED may refer to:
Economics and finance
* TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar
Education
* ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association
** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey
** Transvaal Education Depa ...
conference, ''Why women should tell the stories of humanity'', has been viewed more than 1.1 million times .
Festivals
![Jude Kelly Keynote- Zero Tolerance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Jude_Kelly_Keynote-_Zero_Tolerance.jpg)
In 2010, she founded the ''
Women of the World Festival
Women of the World Festival (WOW, WOW Festival) is an annual arts and science festival based in London, that celebrates the achievements of women and girls, as well as looking at the obstacles they face across the world. As a global feminist mov ...
'' (''WOW''), first held in the Southbank Centre, which celebrates the achievements of women and girls as well as looking at the obstacles they face, and which is now an annual international event.
In 2014, she founded the ''
Being a Man Festival'' (''BAM''), also held in the Southbank Centre, a UK-based festival which addresses the challenges and pressures of masculine identity in the 21st century.
Financial education
Alongside Olga Miler Christen, Kelly founded Smartpurse Limited in 2019 in order to provide financial advice and education to women.
Recognition and awards
In 2006, Kelly was named number 8 in "Theatreland's top 100 players" by ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' newspaper.
Kelly has represented Britain within
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
on cultural matters, served on the Arts Advisory Committee for the
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...
, and jointly chaired with
Lord Puttnam
David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, HonFRSA, HonFRPS, MRIA (born 25 February 1941) is a British film producer, educator, environmentalist and former member of the House of Lords. His productions include ''Chariots of Fire'', which w ...
the Curricula Advisory Committee on Arts and Creativity. She is chair of Metal, a member of the London Cultural Consortium, and a member of the Dishaa Advisory Group. She previously sat on the board of
Creativity, Culture and Education
Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) is a UK-based international foundation dedicated to unlocking the creativity of children and young people in and out of formal education. This is done primarily through designing and implementing programmes ...
(CCE) when it ran the government's flagship creative learning programme,
Creative Partnerships
Creative Partnerships was the UK government's flagship creative learning programme, established in 2002 as part of the council's SR2000 settlement to develop young people's creativity through artists' engagement with schools in nominated areas acro ...
, funded by the government with £40m per year by the education and cultural departments, working in one in five schools in England, reaching more than 1 million young people over 10 years. She is Chair of the Trustees for World Book Night, and was on the
Cultural Olympiad
An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games.
Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not until ...
Board which was responsible for delivering the creative, cultural and educational aspects of
London's Olympic and
Paralympic Games
The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...
in 2012. Despite her involvement in these significant investments by the UK government in the preceding ten years, in 2013, she claimed that no action had been taken by the state relating to young people's cultural education since the 1999 NACCCE report or the Henley Review in 2012.
She is visiting Professor at
Kingston University
, mottoeng = "Through Learning We Progress"
, established = – gained University Status – Kingston Technical Institute
, type = Public
, endowment = £2.3 m (2015)
, ...
,
Leeds University
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
and at Shanghai Performing Arts School.
In October 2012, Kelly was presented with a
BASCA
The Ivors Academy (formerly the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors – BASCA) is one of the largest professional associations for music writers in Europe. The academy exists to support, protect, and campaign for the interests ...
Gold Badge Award in recognition of her services to music.
In February 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by ''
Woman's Hour
''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946.
History
Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by A ...
'' on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
, and also recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women. Already
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(OBE), she was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(CBE) in the
2015 New Year Honours for services to the arts.
In September 2018, to mark ''
Time Out'' magazine's 50th anniversary, she was one of 50 people featured as helping to shape London's cultural landscape and "make the city awesome".
[Alim Kheraj and ''Time Out'' editors]
"50 Londoners who make the city awesome"
''Time Out'', 14 September 2018.
References
External links
Metal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Jude
1954 births
Living people
People from Liverpool
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
2012 Summer Olympics cultural ambassadors
Artistic directors
English theatre directors
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Southbank Centre
BBC 100 Women
Women theatre directors
Theatre people from Merseyside
Fellows of King's College London