About Nakai

Artistic Director | General Manager | Mission Statement | Company History

Nakai is a theatre a hundres miles west of Vancouver. It's also somewhat north.

Challenging, entertaining and provoking Yukoners, developing Yukon theatre artists and telling our stories on stage has been Nakai Theatre's charge for 26 seasons. Based in Whitehorse, Nakai has brought over 50 new plays to life and given countless Yukoners their professional theatre worksince 1979. Some have passed beyond here, performing or taking our stories to the rest of Canada. Past Whitehorse, Dawson, Watson Lake, Mayo, Ross River, Teslin, Carmacks and Atlin, Yukon plays have been performed in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Toronto. Since 1979 there have been 16 productions of Nakai plays South of 60, nine since 2002! It's a proud legacy!

Mission Statement

Nakai Theatre:

• is dedicated to artistic excellence through the long-term development of professional theatre that reflects a northern identity to local, national, and international audiences, contributing a northern voice to the canon of Canadian plays;
• provides Yukon audiences with access to a wide range of theatre artists;
• creates opportunities for artistic exchange and learning locally, nationally, and internationally;
• operates within a stable organisational and financial structure; and
• partners in the community to create a 150 – 200 seat performance venue and a space dedicated to rehearsal and development.

Artistic Director
David Skelton
p: 867-393-6042
e: david at nakaitheatre dot com

David became Nakai Theatre’s Artistic Director in the summer of 2006. However, he has been working regularly at Nakai since 2000 when he designed the production of 60 Below. Since then he has designed Nakai’s shows Wanted, The Drawer Boy, Heart of a Distant Tribe, West Edmonton Mall, Blooms, The Plum Tree, Yellow On Thursdays, Snowman, Perfect Pie, Vigil and Where the River Meets the Sea. In 2003 he was Nakai’s Artist in Residence and 2004 he produced Nakai’s first Homegrown Theatre Festival.

David has been designing professional Canadian theatre since 1987 when he graduated from the University of Alberta with a Masters degree in Theatre Design. From that time until now he has designed over 120 shows throughout Canada.

In 2006 he was a Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominee for Independent Theatre Set Design and Lighting Design for the Theatre Centre’s production of the premiere of Judith Thompson’s play Enoch Arden. In 2003 he was a Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominee for Independent Theatre Set Design of Modern Times Theatre production of Stories Of Rains Of Love and Death. In 1990 he won an Edmonton Sterling Award for his set design of Road. Later in the decade his designs were nominated 5 times again for a Sterling.

He was Artistic Director of New Heart Company of Artists in Edmonton, Alberta from 1997-1999 and also the Artistic Associate of 4th Line Theatre Company from 2002-2003.

I am looking forward to expanding the idea of the dramatic or theatrical experience.
I am looking forward to creating theatre that resonates with the power of our environment.

The textures of the world around us are felt in our gut. The water, the rocks and the air.

General Manager
Corrie Galienne
p: 867-393-6040
e: corrie at nakaitheatre dot com

Company History	Sheila Langston and Beth Mulloy
Nakai Players was founded in 1979 by Sheila Langston and Beth Mulloy. It served as a touring company, traveling to Yukon communities, also placing an emphasis on nurturing First Nations theatre. In 1989 Nakai Players merged with Separate Reality theatre to form the Nakai Theatre Ensemble.
The growth of the company into a professional theatre (the largest one north of 60) occurred as the Yukon arts community matured. Under Artistic Director Dawn Davies (1989–1995), Nakai focused more of its activities in Whitehorse, and began providing developmental opportunities to Yukon theatre practitioners, particularly for youth and First Nation artists. In 1986 Nakai created the 24 Hour Playwriting Competition, the first of its kind in Canada. Nakai also developed several plays which received second productions by "outside" theatre companies: Sixty Below by Patti Flather and Leonard Linklater, Land(e)scapes by Leslie Hamson and Running On Frozen Air by Gord McCall. Sixty Below received 7 Dora Mavor Moore Theatre Award nominations for its 1997 Toronto production.
Under Artistic Director Philip Adams (1995–1998), Nakai established a national reputation as a "development" company, providing northern playwrights with opportunities to create new work. In 1996, it created the New Theatre North Playwrights’ Festival, in which senior Canadian playwrights and dramaturges were brought in to work with local playwrights. Nakai forged stronger links with other theatre centres across the country. Plays Nakai developed during this period that have seen outside productions include Cloudberry by Cristina Pekarik, The Fasting Girl by Miche Genest, and A Tree Fell in the Forest by Lawrie Crawford. Adams also began developing relationship with Perseverance Theatre of Juneau, Alaska, the company’s geographically closest neighbour.

From 1999-2006, under Artistic Director Michael Clark, Nakai began a new phase. The company extended the notion of "developmental" theatre work to all theatre artists in a production. Audience development also became a focus. Nakai Theatre broadened its programming to reach a wider audience and raised its production values, moving its main venue to the Yukon Arts Centre. Clark solidified ties with Perseverance Theatre, presenting its work to Yukon audiences.

The Nakai Theatre Arts Comedy Festival brings the best in Canadian Comedy and comic touring theatre to the Yukon each January, building its audience by cultivating a wider interest in live performance. Residencies for senior Canadian theatre artists were established for playwrights (Sally Clark, Patti Flather, Mitch Miyagawa) designers (David Skelton), composers (Daniel Janke). The company also began touring more regularly to outlying Yukon communities. Michael's directing credits include Where the River Meets the Sea (co-directed), West Edmonton Mall, Snowman, WANTED, The Drawer Boy, The Plum Tree, Yellow On Thursdays, Perfect Pie, Vigil and speak for Nakai Theatre