Jayme Kilburn

Jayme Kilburn is the Founding Artistic Director of the Strand Theater Company in Baltimore City. She is a graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara with a degree in Dramatic Art and Psychology. In 2014, Jayme completed an interdisciplinary master's degree in Humanities and Social Thought at NYU and is currently working towards her PhD in Theatre Arts at Cornell University.

Jayme has won two Best Production Awards for her work in the Baltimore Playwright's Festival.  She was named one of Broadwayworld.com's 2006 Up and Comers, Broadwayworld.com's 2007 Best of Baltimore Community Theater for Best Direction, and received recognition for the Strand as one of the "top five theaters in Baltimore 2011" from Baltimore Magazine under her leadership. She has received grant funding from the Cornell Council of the Arts (CCA), Baltimore Office of Promotions and the Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, and Artscape. Jayme's plays Ding! Or Bye Bye Dad and Garbage Kids received their world-premiere productions at Venus Theatre in 2014 and 2016. Jayme has directed over thirty productions including Real Women Have Curves by Josefina Lopez, In The Blood by Suzan Lori-Parks, [sic] by Melissa James Gibson, The Mai by Marina Carr, The Glory of Living by Rebecca Gilman, One Flea Spare by Naomi Wallace, Anna Bella Eema by Lisa D'Amour, That Pretty Pretty; or, the Rape Play by Sheila Callaghan, and most recently Mr. Burns, a post-electric play by Anne Washburn at Cornell University’s Schwartz Center. Jayme works with the Phoenix Players Theatre Group (founded by incarcerated men) and recently finished a collaborative feminist devised project with Civic Ensemble entitled She Persists. Jayme has won three first-year writing seminar awards for her work as an instructor at Cornell University and is a member of Cornell's NextGen Professors inaugural cohort. Jayme recently received the Engaged Graduate Student Grant for her women’s performance workshop. Jayme is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Union.