RON JENKINS
DIRECTOR/PLAYWRIGHT IN RESIDENCE
The Chair In Between

Ron Jenkins is a Sydney, Nova Scotia based freelance director and playwright who lived and worked in Edmonton for 25 years, his second home. He was the Artistic Director of Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre, Artistic Director of Fringe Theatre Adventures, and Associate Artist with Shadow Theatre.

Ron has worked across the country as a Director, Actor and Playwright. His plays have been produced nationally and internationally, and his play Extinction Song won the 2009 Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award for Best New Play. In 2023 he was member of The Stratford Playwrights Retreat. He is currently finishing rewrites on his play Voice of Fire and working on a new play Strike The Tent.

Selected Directing Credits include: Orlando, The Government Inspector, Fuddy Meers, Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, What The Butler Saw (University of Alberta); The Woman in Black (SJTC); Mamma Mia, ELF, Dear Rita, Grease (SAVOY); Cabaret, Little Shop of Horrors, The Happy Prince, Silence (GBMM); Spelling Bee, Sucker, Next to Normal (HAT); Playing With Fire (Persephone/Citadel/PTE/ATP); The 39 Steps, Turn of the Screw (Vertigo); Julius Caesar, Richard III, Romeo & Juliet, Othello (TSC); Chasing Champions (Ship’s Theatre Company); High Life (GZT); ENRON (NAC); Métis Mutt (Theatre Network); Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet (Belfry Theatre); 1984 (Saint John Theatre Company); Next to Normal (Theatre Calgary/Citadel); Chicago (Mayfield Dinner Theatre); The Forbidden Phoenix, Extinction Song (Citadel Theatre); The Trespassers (Belfry/Vancouver Playhouse); Bash’d (ZIPPER FACTORY/ Off Broadway); Mary’s Wedding, Mesa (Workshop West); Respectable, Confessions of a Paper Boy (Ghost River Theatre); The Black Rider (November Theatre Co.); The Red Priest (Eight Ways to Say Goodbye); The Blue Light (Alberta Theatre Projects); Steel Kiss, Eureka, The Horror, The Horror (Skid).

Ron has won ten Sterling Awards as a director and playwright and two Betty Mitchell Awards for Direction for The Black Rider and Playing With Fire. In 2013 he was honored with a CCA Award in Ottawa for his direction of ENRON. Ron is also the winner of the 2004 Syncrude Award for Artistic Innovation and a Critter Award Winner for Playing with Fire. Ron was shortlisted for the 2007 and 2010 Siminovitch Prize in theatre for Direction.