Leadership

Kelly Kerwin (she/hers) began her tenure as OKC Rep's Artistic Director in July 2021, after over four years at The Public Theater, where she was the Associate Producer for the Under the Radar Festival and The Public’s Devised Theater Working Group. She was also a Line Producer for plays and musicals in The Public’s five performance spaces. At The Public, she line produced the world premieres of Girl from The North Country; Soft Power; We're Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time; The Line; M’lima’s Tale; Tony Kushner's revised A Bright Room Called Day, among others. She also produced the Under the Radar Festival, featuring work by Whitney White; Manual Cinema; Tania El Khoury; Inua Ellams; New Saloon; Lola Arias; Rude Mechs; Ifeoma Fafunwa; 600 Highwaymen, Dickie Beau; Choir! Choir! Choir! with David Byrne, and artists from over twenty countries. 

Kelly has been on the artistic staff at Yale Repertory Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Atlantic Theater Company, The House Theatre of Chicago, Chicago’s Collaboraction, and she was the Co-Artistic Director for the Yale Cabaret's 46th Season. She also helped establish Chicago's Salonathon, a weekly series specializing in underground performance. As a dramaturg, she has worked on world premieres with playwrights Ike Holter, Phillip Howze, Carly Mensch, Amelia Roper, and Emily Zemba.

She was an adjunct professor at Connecticut Culture where she designed and tuaght the curriculum for the Theater and Culture courses, and she's been a guest artist/guest lecturer at The New School; U.T. Austin; University of Oklahoma; The Theatre School at DePaul; Yale School of Drama; and Yale College. Kelly has a B.F.A. from the Theatre School at DePaul University and an M.F.A. in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama, where she received The Pierre-André Salim Prize - awarded to the graduating student who shows distinct promise of raising the standard of practice in the field.