The National Arts Centre’s President and CEO, Peter Herrndorf announced today that Kevin Loring will be the first ever Artistic Director of Indigenous Theatre at the NAC, taking up his post on October 16, 2017.
The first season of the Indigenous Theatre Department will coincide with the NAC’s 50th Anniversary in the 2019-2020 season.
“We are thrilled to welcome Kevin Loring to the National Arts Centre in this very historic role as our first ever Artistic Director of Indigenous Theatre,” said Peter A. Herrndorf, the President and CEO of the NAC. “Mr. Loring’s work as an actor on our national stage, and as a playwright with his play Where the Blood Mixes, has inspired us and audiences across Canada for many years. He is a groundbreaking artist, and we know he will succeed in building our new Indigenous Theatre Department.”
Mr. Loring is an accomplished Canadian playwright, actor and teacher, and was the winner of the Governor General’s Award for English Language Drama for his outstanding play, Where the Blood Mixes in 2009. The play explores the intergenerational effects of the residential school system. It toured nationally and was presented at the National Arts Centre in 2010, when Mr. Loring was serving as the NAC’s Playwright in Residence.
A Nlaka’pamux from the Lytton First Nation in British Columbia, Loring created the Songs of the Land project in 2012 in partnership with five separate organizations in his home community. The project explores 100-year-old audio recordings of songs and stories of the N’lakap’amux People. Loring has written two new plays based on his work with the community including Battle of the Birds, about domestic violence and power abuse, and The Boy Who Was Abandoned, about youth and elder neglect.
