Chelsea Dab Hilke

Chelsea Dab Hilke is a director and theatre-maker from Montreal, to which she recently returned after a decade of working and studying in Toronto. She aims to lead a supportive yet demanding creative environment which focuses on process and collaboration and values courageous risk-taking, care, compassion and curiosity. Through theatre-making, Chelsea seeks pathways to reach a deeper understanding of herself and the world. She firmly believes that theatre is a moment of witnessing and being witnessed; a space where reality and truth collide with imagination and the uncanny. Chelsea is interested in investigating the collision of gender, medical systems, abortion, mothers, grief, jewish-ness, memory and the precariousness of identity … in no particular order.
During her time at NTS, Chelsea directed productions of Mother and Child by Jon Fosse and Und by Howard Barker, as well as a production workshop exploration of Leslye Headland’s Assistance.
Artistic and leadership mentors at NTS: Arianna Bardesono, Dian Marie Bridge, Erin Brubacher, Catherine Bourgeois, Naomi Campbell, Jessica Carmichael, Audrey Dwyer, Julie Fox, James Long, Jackie Maxwell, Rose Plotek, Matjash Mrozewski and Maiko Yamamoto.
Chelsea holds a Masters in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University, with a specialization in collaborative creation practices and performance ethnography. She is also a graduate of the Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies program at the University of Toronto.
Select directing credits outside of NTS: Safe and Sorry (Lester Trips Theatre – SummerWorks, 2019); Mr. Truth (Lester Trips Theatre – rEvolver Festival, 2019); Take It, Easy (Cleen Theatre – Nightwood Theatre’s 2019 Fempocalypse, Creme de la Femme Cabaret, 2017, and 2016’s Wrecking Ball #16); ASMRtist (Alma Matters Productions, 2017); This Is For You, Anna (Hart House Theatre, 2015).