The Things Our Mother Tells Us

Being an artist doesn’t start when earning your degrees or even at your first professional job, it starts with your mother reading stories to you. I learned this from chatting with renowned director, actor, arts educator, and creative, Kelly Kitchens. She is a professional director based in Seattle who works across the country, an Artist in Residence at the University of Washington, and an award-winning artist, including a two-time recipient of the Gregory Falls Award for Outstanding Director.

Dash Montague: Your career has evolved multidimensionally, including acting, directing, playwriting, and arts education. How did that all develop?

Kelly Kitchens: I’ve always loved stories. My parents would tirelessly read to my sister and I and that grew into me becoming this voracious reader, a hungry traveler through these magnificent worlds. They recognized early I had a storyteller’s heart, even before I did. But growing up, our family’s budget didn’t have room for any extras; so my brilliant, resourceful, determined mother found ways to access the arts that were free to the public. And then one day she found free Shakespeare in the Park. Sitting on that blanket that beautiful summer evening I didn’t understand every word they were saying—but I understood that there was a door to this whole new wide world opening up in front of me. And I just ran towards it...

I spent many years as an actor, telling stories as characters that were by turns deliciously complicated, silly, smart, devious, and so much more...After a while, I found myself sitting less in the dressing room during tech rehearsals and more out in the house watching brilliant directors and creative teams work magic together. I thought, “Wouldn't that be thrilling, to actually help envision and build the world in which the story and the characters inhabit?”. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when some marvelous folks at companies I’d worked for as an actor and a teaching artist generously threw open the next beautiful door to another new world for me—they gave me the opportunity to direct. A little later, I had to pinch myself when the world of opera opened up to me—I remember telling them, “I know how to read music, but I certainly don’t know how to sing,” and they said, “You know how to tell a story. That’s what matters.”

And now, these many years later, all starting with my parents’ love and support, carried forward by untold numbers of generous folks who make the arts accessible, remarkable teachers and mentors, arts leaders who trusted me with so many opportunities, and the friendship of extraordinary fellow-artists, I have the boundless joy of this multi-faceted life in the arts.

DM: You have been described as an omnivore of theatrical genres, what fuels this passion to explore all the different edges of theatre?

KK: Oh my word there’s just an unending volume and variety of stories out there and so many ways to tell them, isn’t there? I’m endlessly fascinated by them. I feel like that little girl again with all those books yet to be read—so many worlds to explore...I get excited just thinking about what story, what style, what team, what adventure is waiting around the corner and what new doors might open next.

DM: What’s one story that’s next for you?

KK: I’m thrilled to be working with Rising Waters Collective on disPLACE, a contemporary chamber opera composed by Joan Magrané & Raquel García-Tomás with the libretto by Helena Tornero. It’s a compelling, resonant story that explores how the search for home collides with the forces of gentrification through two intertwining stories separated in time but connected by place. I can’t wait to work with Rising Waters Collective; they’re a new company with the mission of creating bold, locally rooted chamber opera that amplifies stories of our region and embraces opera as a living art form—one that resonates with the struggles and hopes of our time while honoring its deep traditions.

DM: Beyond putting on a great show, as an arts educator, what do you hope young people take away from working with you?

KK: So much! Where to begin? I hope to give them even in some part what was given to me by so many others. I hope I can help open doors that reveal new worlds in which they can revel, explore, create, grow. I hope to ignite their empathy and fuel their curiosity. I hope they continue to discover the wonder and the workings of the world and the folks around them throughout their lives. To ask the what, the how, the whys of things and to chase all those rabbits down the glorious paths those questions will lead...I hope to encourage their sense of play that they then sustain for a lifetime.

Through all the twists and turns life brings I hope they keep finding their joy, and the spirit of adventure of it all, all along the way. And I hope they continue to tell their stories—our community, our world, needs their stories—and I hope they continue to listen to and encourage the stories of others.

It started with stories that her mother would read to her and grew into a career where Kitchens connects people to one another, and to the world around them through storytelling. Her journey illustrates that supporting accessible arts for youth makes way for the art that we see on stage today.

This article was written on special assignment for Encore through the TeenTix Press Corps, a teen arts journalism program run by TeenTix, a youth empowerment and arts access nonprofit organization.