Keen Company Reveals New Leadership Roles for Upcoming 26th Season

Keen Company has revealed its new leadership for its 26th Season. In a new dual leadership model, Kelly Kerwin will serve as Artistic Director and Annie Middleton will serve as Producing Director. The pair will share responsibility as co-leaders of the organization, succeeding the departing Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein who will step down on June 30th, 2025. The appointment follows a nationwide search led by the Keen Company Board of Directors.
 
Kelly Kerwin most recently served as the Artistic Director of Oklahoma City Repertory Theater, where she restored the dormant company into one of top professional theaters in the region. Annie Middleton has been a General Manager Consultant at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), as well as a Development Consultant with A.D. Hamingson & Associates.
 
Keen Company was founded in 2000 by Carl Forsman who served as Artistic Director until 2012, when Jonathan Silverstein took over the role and helmed the organization until his decision to step down in 2025. Kelly Kerwin and Annie Miller will officially begin their tenure July 1st, 2025
 
Patrons can look forward to Keen Company’s Season 26 announcement coming later this year.
 
Keen Company’s Board President Courtney Costello said “The board of directors of Keen Company is deeply grateful to Jonathan Silverstein for his extraordinary dedication and skill as Artistic Director over the past 12 years. During his time as Artistic Director, Jonathan broadened the range of experiences and identities depicted on our stage and formed authentic relationships with the audiences whose stories were being told. In this way, he realized the Keen mission [of creating “intimate theater that celebrates the complexities of hope and the joys of the human condition” on a new level. The collaboration between Jonathan and Managing Producer Ashley DiGiorgi, which was integral to the company’s achievements, allowed us to grow both artistically and financially through challenging times and to expand our reach to audiences and artists. As Kelly Kerwin and Annie Middleton assume co-leadership of the company, we honor the legacy that Jonathan has created and welcome them warmly, confident that they will craft a unique and forward-looking expression of Keen’s mission. Their fearlessness, expertise, and creativity, combined with a deep understanding of our company’s values, make them the ideal leaders for Keen’s next era.”

Newly appointed Artistic Director Kelly Kerwin said “I’m so grateful for the opportunity to co-lead Keen Company, and I am honored to take the baton from the wonderful and generous Jonathan Silverman.  He made Keen a beacon for intimate theater that helped people feel connected and seen. I look forward to serving Keen’s mission and audience while making big things happen. We will celebrate artists who bring surprise and meaning to our lives. To say I am thrilled to partner with Annie Middleton is an understatement. Annie’s commitment to cultivating joyful spaces for theater artists makes her uniquely suited to this position. Together we will lead Keen into the future, and we will work to help alleviate the current culture of exhaustion by producing theater that replenishes the spirit and brings people together.
 
Biographies
 

KELLY KERWIN

is an artistic leader who has built her career curating and producing theater spanning a range of forms including new plays, site-specific theater, Broadway-bound musicals, and devised work.  From 2021 to 2024, she was the Artistic Director of Oklahoma City Repertory Theater, where she restored the dormant company into one of the top professional theaters in the region.  Under her tenure, OKC Rep produced 13 shows, including world and national premieres, work by International Artists, collaborations with local non-profits a collaboration with the NBA Thunder, and she created a partnership with the Under the Radar Festival that is still going on.  From 2017 to 2021, she was at The Public Theater where she produced world premiere plays and musicals including Soft Power by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, M’lima’s Tale by Lynn Nottage and Conor McPherson’s Girl from the North Country.  During this time, she simultaneously produced the Under the Radar Festival where she worked with artists from over twenty counties and six continents. She shepherded The Public’s Devised Theater Working Group and produced the work-in-progress showings as part of Under the Radar. In 2016, she received the Mark Bly Creative Capacities Fellowship to support POP! A Pop-Up Performance Festival, which she conceived, curated and produced featuring brand-new theater experiences by 17 emerging artists in seven spaces (including one automobile!) throughout Bushwick, Brooklyn. She recently partnered with Ato Blankson-Wood to relaunch POP! And the first iteration just popped up at Here Arts Center as party of Queer@Here. She’s worked on the artistic staff of Yale Rep, Steppenwolf, Atlantic, The House Theatre of Chicago and Collaboration. At Yale School of Drama, she was the co-artistic director for the Yale Cabaret’s 46th Season. She co-founded Guided Tour, a site-specific, live art experience providing fake tours of real spaces, and she helped launch Chicago’s Salonathon-a weekly series specializing in underground performance. Kelly has her MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the yale Schol of Drama.
 

Annie Middleton-Managing Producer

Annie Middleton is a passionate art-maker, creative producer and theater manager with a deep life-long commitment to the live performing arts, and more than 10 years of experience in top leadership positions at various NYC-based arts organizations. She most recently served as General Manager Consultant at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) as well as a Development Consultant with A.D. Hamingson & Associates, working with organizations including New York Stage and Film and Bushwick Starr.  Annie has also served as Managing Director of Waterwell Heartbeat Opera and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.  Additionally, Annie has worked as an independent producer and creative partner to a number of individual artists and companies.  She is a graduate of Yale School of Drama’s Theater Management MFA program.