Theatre director and East Bay native, Ron Jenkins recently premiered his latest production, Nisei Blue by Mieko Ouchi, at the Enbridge playRites Festival in Calgary, Alberta.
Jenkins began his theatre career in Cape Breton as a part of the then University College of Cape Breton Dramagroup (now the Cape Breton University Dramagroup) acting in many productions, including the lead role of “The Elephant Man”.
He continued his theatre career in western Canada, starting his own theatre company, as well as working in numerous theatres in across Canada and in the United States. He was twice short-listed, most recently in 2010, for the Siminovitch Prize, the largest theatre prize in Canada.
J. Kelly Nestruck’s writes in a review in the Globe and Mail: “Jenkins directs Nisei Blue with a flair for mysterious movement. Characters fall into voids, the dead come back to life and, in one frightening sequence, the internment of Japanese Canadians after Pearl Harbor is represented by police smashing paper lanterns like pinatas.”
Jenkins’s mother, Peggy, remains active on the local theatre scene, performing in many of the recent dinner theatre productions of The Mira Road Players.
