Keith Barker

Keith Barker (Métis) is an actor, playwright, director, and dramaturg from Northwestern Ontario, with a career spanning more than two decades in Canadian theatre. He is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival, where he oversees the development of new Canadian plays and works with playwrights, directors, dramaturgs, and artists across the Festival’s development programs. He is the former Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts, Canada’s oldest professional Indigenous theatre company. Prior to that, he served as a Theatre Program Officer at the Canada Council for the Arts.

Keith has developed and directed new work by many of Canada’s leading playwrights and artists. His recent directing credits include Women of the Fur Trade at Thousand Islands Playhouse / Neptune Theatre, and Yvette Nolan’s The Art of War at the Stratford Festival.

His own work as a playwright includes This Is How We Got Here, The Hours That Remain, and Raised by Women. Raised by Women, his one-person show, premiered at Prairie Theatre Exchange in 2025 and will be presented as part of Canadian Stage’s 2027 season. Keith co-wrote The Veil with Thomas Morgan Jones, which premiered at Crow’s Theatre in 2025 and was produced by Guild Festival Theatre and Thought for Food. It will be presented at the Stratford Festival, and Vertigo Theatre in 2026. His work has been recognized with the Johanna Metcalf Prize, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, and the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt Award.

Last Updated Sept. 2026