Kelly is an award-winning theater director, producer, and nonprofit arts leader with a passion for place-based arts and finding new models for the regional theater movement. Trained at Shakespeare & Company under Tina Packer, Kelly harnesses performance as a practice for collective inquiry and transformation, creating theater that sparks wonder and connection.
As a stage director and assistant, Kelly’s work ranges from new plays to reexamined classics at institutions including Shakespeare & Company, the Guthrie, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Gloucester Stage, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, WAM Theatre, Great Barrington Public, and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. Her 2016 production of Livian Yeh’s Memorial was an honorable mention on the 2017 Kilroys List, and her work has been recognized with two BroadwayWorld Award nominations for Best Director, as well as a Berkshire Critics Award nomination for Best Production. She has held fellowships with Asolo Rep and Arena Stage, as well as observerships with the Huntington and Bedlam NYC.
Based in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Kelly is deeply invested in the Berkshires as a model for regional theaters and arts institutions serving as ecosystems that support local artists, communities, and economies, while connecting visionary work to visiting audiences and the broader world of theater and the arts.
As a Program Director at Community Access to the Arts (CATA) in Great Barrington, she serves on the senior leadership team and oversees a staff and faculty of 25 in delivering programs for CATA’s 67 program partners. She helped author and execute CATA’s 2023–26 strategic plan, which has resulted in yearly program growth, expansion of cultural partnerships and performance opportunities, and a reimagining of CATA’s Gala and Annual Performance as a cutting-edge, multidisciplinary, and fully accessible arts event.
A company artist with Shakespeare & Company since 2008, she has directed on the Company’s mainstage and within its award-winning education programs, serving as a teaching artist for six years in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare and as a director for Shakespeare & Young Company. She currently serves as the Artist Trustee on Shakespeare & Company’s Board.
Kelly holds an MFA in Directing and a Certificate in Arts Administration from Boston University and a BA in Political Theory from Wellesley College. She was named one of the Berkshires’ 40 Under 40 in 2025.