Turnbull, Keith

Keith Turnbull's career as a director, dramaturge and producer is highlighted by a commitment to contemporary and new work in both the theatre and opera. He has a particular interest in the pedagogy, performance practice and interpretation of Shakespeare and other language based texts. Through the Banff Centre, he also became a producer of contemporary dance. Keith Turnbull began his association with the theatre as a producer, designer and director at the University of Western Ontario and London Little Theatre. After assisting directors such as John Hirsch, Jean Gascon and Eddie Gilbert at the Stratford Festival, MTC and elsewhere, he began a cross-country freelance career. At the age of 25 after two years as resident director, he was appointed artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre and opened their new theatre in 1970. In 1973, he went on to Halifax’s Neptune Theatre as the artistic director of their Second Stage, and was resident artistic director for Neptune’s summer season in 1974. After directing James Reaney's three landmark plays, Donnelly Trilogy at Tarragon Theatre, Keith founded The NDWT Co. and from 1975 to 1981 directed, adapted, wrote, produced and designed a wide variety of new plays, many of which toured nationally. With NDWT he started a First Nations theatre company from which emerged many of Canada's most noted native performers. He was the founding co-artistic director of the Toronto International Theatre Festival, is a past president of the Toronto Theatre Alliance, and is a past board member of Canadian Actors' Equity Association. He has taught at Concordia University, the University of Manitoba, National Theatre School, the University of Calgary, l’Université de Montréal, Bishop’s University, The Banff Centre, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal and Tapestry New Opera Works. Keith has directed over seventy plays at such theatres as Alberta Theatre Projects, Green Thumb Theatre for Young People, Manitoba Theatre Centre, National Arts Centre, Neptune Theatre, One Yellow Rabbit, Sunshine Theatre, Stratford Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Toronto Arts Productions, and Young People's Theatre and has directed operas at Festival Les Coups de Théâtre (Montreal), Edmonton Opera, Music Theatre Wales, New Music Concerts (Toronto), nexmap (San Francisco), Norbotten Music Theatre (Sweden), Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal), Norlandsoperan (Sweden), Peteå Chamber Opera (Sweden), Taliesin Arts Centre (Swansea Wales),Tapestry New Opera Works (Toronto), Welsh National Opera and Vancouver Opera. From the early 80’s to 1999 he worked at the Banff Centre for the Arts and from 1994 to ’95 was the Artistic Director and Executive Producer of Theatre Arts and the Co-director with Bob White of the Banff playRites Colony. For Banff Theatre Arts, he directed productions including The Rake’s Progress (Stravinsky), Oral Treason (Kagel), Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot (Maxwell Davies) that toured the Edmonton Fringe and Stratford Festivals, the world premiere of UBU (Toovey)which toured throughout Great Britain, the Canadian premiere of White Rose (Zimmermann), and the world premieres of Boiler Room Suite (UK tour, Doolittle), Kafka's Chimp (Metcalf) and Zürich:1916 (Butterfield). At Banff he directed works by Aperghis, Maxwell Davies, Finnessy, Kagel, Menotti, Stravinsky, Weill, and Zimmermann; produced works by Antheil, Berg, Birtwistle, Daugherty, Henze, Nyman, Toovey and Vivier; and developed new works by such composers as L. Bouchard, J. Evangelista, J. Oliver, Z. Settel and L. C. Smith. He is Canada’s most experienced producer and director of contemporary opera. Also for Banff, he co-produced dance works by Ballet British Columbia, Deepti Gupta, Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Joe Ink, Ballet Jörgen,
Misrasena, Jocelyn Montpetit, José Navas, New Dance Horizons Saskatchewan, Dominique Porte and Pierre-Paul Savois Danse; On leaving Banff he directed the Swedish production of John Metcalf’s opera Kafka's Chimp which toured Sweden; Transports for the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in Cardiff and the Swansea Festival, Wales; Out
Loud Live for PanCanadian Wordfest in Calgary, the Harbourfront salute to architect Frank O. Gehry, the Welsh/Italian co-production of Different Lights in New York, the English professional premiere of Sabina Berman’s Molière for Alberta Theatre Projects and Jean Racine’s Britannicus for Theatre Junction (Calgary). In 2005 with his production company Le Chien qui chante, he developed, produced and directed a new opera A Chair in love by John Metcalf and Larry Tremblay which premiered and toured in Wales and Ireland in 2005, presented ten performances in Montreal in 2006 and then in 2008 toured in Wales and England. In 2006 at Factory Theatre in Toronto, he directed his translation published by Talon Books of Larry Tremblay’s play The Ventriloquist. In Sweden he directed the much-acclaimed world premiere of Carl
Unander-Scharin’s The Crystal Cabinet for which he was also co-librettist. In 2011, he directed and dramaturged the world premiere of Darwin: Endless Forms Most Beautiful by composer Ralph Denzer and librettist Ryan Hurl for Concordia University. In 2012, he directed the world premiere of The Elephant Man by composer Carl Unander-Scharin and librettist Michael Wiiliams for Norlandsoperan (Sweden). The Elephant Man was selected as one of the ten most significant cultural events in Sweden for 2012. Most recently he dramaturged and directed the world premiere in Edmonton of the new opera Shelter* by Juliet Palmer and Julie Salverson for Tapestry New Opera (Toronto) in coproduction with Edmonton Opera. In 2014, Shelter was remounted in Toronto. Also in 2014 he was dramaturge and director for Under Milk Wood – an opera by composer John Metcalf with text by Dylan Thomas for Taliesin Arts Centre (Swansea) in coproduction with Companion Star (New York), Le Chien qui chante (Montréal) and in association with Welsh National Opera. The production opened in Swansea followed by a tour to four Welsh cities and a double CD recording. It was chosen one of the ten best 2015 world premieres by International Opera Awards, one of the ten best UK opera productions by The Guardian, and one of the three best UK productions of Opera and Music Theatre by the Royal Philharmonic Society. The CD recording was selected by British Airways for their In-flight entertainment. Keith’s translations of play texts from French to English include: Four to Four (co-translator Christian Bédard) by Michel Garneau published by Éditions Simon and Pierre; The Ventriloquist by Larry Tremblay published by Talonbooks; Burger Love by Tremblay published by Playwrights’ Canada Press, War Cantata by Tremblay published by Talonbooks and seven other unpublished translated texts by Tremblay.