Jillian Jetton is a director, maker & curator of new performance. Raised in the Bay Area and based in New York by way of Philadelphia, her background spans scripted, devised and physical theater, video art, and experience design. She is a 2026-2027 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow and a member of the 2024 Mercury Store Directing Lab. Next season Jetton will direct the world premiere of SEE/UNSEE, a music-theater composition inspired by painter and mystic Hilma af Klint, at HERE Arts Center. Written and composed by acclaimed folk musician Lila Blue, SEE/UNSEE has received funding from OPERA America and NYSCA, and has been shown and developed at Ars Nova, Z Space, The Brick, and the Lake Lucille Project.
She will also associate direct Motherhood, An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra, which premieres at the Texas Performing Arts Center in November 2026, followed by a tour to ICA Boston and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Most recently, Jetton directed the sold out run of my utopias, a play/potluck by Jay Stull, in the 2026 Exponential Festival. Alongside Matthew Antoci, she stewards and co-curates SalOn!, a quarterly gathering of micro-acts founded by Theresa Buchheister in 2014. Previous collaborations include Brian Mertes, Pig Iron Theater Company, Team Sunshine Performance, and Headlong, among others. MFA Sarah Lawrence College, BA Brown University, Headlong Performance Institute. jillianjetton.com
Publications, Interviews, Etc.
Culturebot, interview by Ethan Karas, “You Can’t Make Art If You Can’t Survive,” 2026
Sarah Lawrence College, MFA Thesis, “Iterative Performance: Resistance & Opportunity in the Rhythm of Returns,” 2023
Berkeley City College, Guest Artist Lecture, “Devised Theater,” 2023
Performance Lab Podcast, 2021-2022
Miguel Gutierrez, Interviewed by Jillian Jetton & Andrew del Vecchio
Will Frears, Interviewed by Jillian Jetton and Michelle Cowles
Zach Morris, Interviewed by Jillian Jetton and Aliya Hunter
thINKingDANCE, interview by Mira Treatman, “The Deep Waves of Jillian Jetton,” 2020
Princeton University, Innovations in Socially Distant Performance, interviewed by Elena Aaroz, “Mieke D, Tony Moaton, and Jillian Jetton,” 2020
Vogue Magazine, “50 Years After the Occupation of Alcatraz, Native American Activists Gather–and Resist,” 2019
Modern Drama, Vol. 57, “Young Jean Lee’s Cruel Dramaturgy,” Patricia Ybarra, 2014