Kevin Loring takes new indigenous theatre post at National Arts Centre

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      Lytton-born Studio 58 grad Kevin Loring, well-known locally for both his acting and playwriting, has been named the first artistic director of indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

      “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,” Peter A. Herrndorf, the president and CEO of the NAC, said in the press announcement today. “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.”

      Loring takes up his post on October 16 and the stage debut of the Indigenous Theatre Department will coincide with the NAC’s 50th-anniversary 2019-20 season.

      A Nlaka’pamux from the Lytton First Nation, Loring's theatre roots go deep here in Vancouver. He has cocurated the Talking Stick Festival, served as artist in residence at the now-defunct Vancouver Playhouse Theatre, and served as artistic director of the Savage Society. His play Where the Blood Mixes won a 2009 Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for outstanding original script as well as the Governor General's drama award for outstanding new play. He was most recently seen on-stage in March's The Pipeline Project and in Corey Payette's Children of God at the Cultch, a musical about the residential school system that he's currently performing on the NAC stage.

      “The founding of the Indigenous Theatre Department at the National Arts Centre is an important step in reconciliation," Loring added in the statement. "Our stories from coast to coast-to-coast are the original songs of this land. Now through the NAC’s Indigenous Theatre Department our stories will have a permanent home, a place to grow and thrive." 

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