Jessica Carmichael, MFA, MA

Jessica Carmichael is an artist of mixed Indigenous (Abénaki, non-status) and European heritage. She specializes in directing, acting, creation and dramaturgy. Jessica trained at the National Theatre School of Canada (Acting), the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art & King’s College London (MA Text & Performance Studies with Distinction), the University of Alberta (MFA Directing with Distinction) and the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction (Stratford Festival, 2014 & 2016).  

Before coming to Concordia, Jessica spent three seasons as the Artistic Director of Carousel Players, a professional theatre company for young audiences. She is a past artistic associate with Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto and was Program Director of their Playwrights Unit Animiikiig. She was a workshop leader for “The Study” hosted by the National Arts Centre, Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance and Debajehmujig Creation Centre. 

Directing (select):  There is Violence, There is Righteous Violence, and There is Deah, or, the Born Again Crow (Native Earth Performing Arts, Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, 2025), Hamlet (Canadian Stage Dream in High Park 2024), The Clearing (Shaw Festival of Canada 2023), Grief (Concordia University Theatre Department, 2023), Middletown  (The National Theatre School of Canada, 2023), The Rez Sisters (Stratford Festival of Canada's 2021 Season); Medicine Wheel, Dream Girl, Across This Body, Dark Matters all responding to the 2019 report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls for New Harlem's commissioned Embodying Power and Place (New Harlem Productions in association with Nightwood Theatre and Native Earth Performing Arts 2021); Apathy (Concordia University Theatre Department 2019); Boys Girls, And Other  Mythological Creatures (Harbourfront Centre, Carousel Players 2019, 2017); Ipperwash (Blyth Festival 2017), Tick; iChild; Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin; Spelling 2-5-5 (Carousel Players 2014-2017), Two Indians (Summerworks Festival 2016);  CLGA Unarchived (co-curator, Buddies in Bad Times Rhubarb Festival 2015), girls!girls!girls! (co-director, SummerWorks 2013). 

Acting (select):  Jessica's work as an actor has taken her across the country. As a youth growing up in Edmonton she worked with such companies as Northern Light Theatre (True Mummy), Stage Polaris (West Side Story), Walterdale Playhouse (Better Living) and UofA’s Studio Theatre (Jennie’s Story). Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada's Three Year Acting program, Jessica's has worked primarily in new play development.  She has had principle and supporting roles in full length feature Canadian films including A Louder Silence (dir. Nicolette Saina), I Think I Do (dir. Dylan Pierce) and Heart of the Sun (dir. France Damberger) and the television series Mentors including the episode The Truth Is Out There (dir. Grant Harvey).

Playwriting (select): Jessica co-created/wrote Ipperwash with playwright Falen Johnson as part of a commission for the Blyth Festival’s 2017-2018 Season, working closely with community members of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. Jessica adapted for the stage Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin by author Chieri Uegaki and illustrator Qin Leng (Kids Can Press), with collaboration with Chieri Uegaki and her family. 

Currently: Comes by Flying, an original work, and an adaptation of Matt Cohen's novel Elizabeth and After.

Dramaturgy (select): Jessica has dramaturged and mentored numerous plawrights' works over the years, including recently Todd Houseman's Children of the Bear with Outside the March Theatre, Ho Kai Kei's Cockroach with Repercussion Theatre and Playwrights Workshop Montréal, Frances Konkan's Women of the Fur Trade with Native Earth Performing Arts, Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan's 1939 with the Stratford Festival of Canada, Jordi Mand's This Will Be Excellent, Mark Crawford's Boys, Girls, and Other Mythological Creatures, Kate Hewlett's What Katy Did and Matt Mackenzie's Tick with Carousel Players.

Currently: Ongoing support for Todd Houseman's Children of the Bear with Outside the March Theatre in Toronto.

Acting, Directing, Dramaturgy, Playwriting

As a director, dramaturge, creator and performer my creation research often investigates and adapts bodies of classic work in non- traditional forms. I enjoy exploring flawed, messy, desperate, enigmatic, complex characters and stories inside a multitude of styles from absurdist, heightened non-literalism to naturalist realism- often in tension with each other. Equally enriching is collaborating on and nurturing contemporary theatrical work with great imagination. Project themes often touch upon grief, hope, resistance, misunderstanding, resilience, dysfunction, alienation, loneliness, the power of forgiveness, the weight of the past, dreams, musical transportation, the relationship of illusion and reality, regret, and love. 

Research Affiliations at Concordia:

Member of Indigenous Futures Research Centre