Keith Barker

Playwright / Screenwriter

Keith Barker is a Métis artist from Northwestern Ontario and the former Artistic Director at Native Earth Performing Arts. Currently, he is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival. In 2023, Keith was a recipient of the Johanna Metcalf Prize, and recipient of the Arts and Letters Award in 2021. In 2020 he received a Dora Mavor Award for Outstanding New Play, and the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt Award. Keith was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama in 2018 for his play, This Is How We Got Here. He received a Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Achievement in Playwriting for his play, The Hours That Remain, as well as a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change. 

Works by Keith Barker

The Hours that Remain thumbnail

The Hours that Remain

By Keith Barker

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This Is How We Got Here thumbnail

This Is How We Got Here

By Keith Barker

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Published Works

Keith Barker's searing new play at the Talking Stick Festival is a testament to how rarely the plight of missing Aboriginal women makes it into the headlines.

The Georgia Straight
Janet Smith

(Praise for This is How We Got Here:)

While the material of This is How We Got Here is deep, the show didn’t leave me feeling anything dark. Instead, I was happy to have experienced the talent of everyone involved, and to have gained perspective on what I felt were honest and true reactions to the tragedy of suicide.

Mooney on Theatre
Jeff Kerr