Hello! I’m Jillian. I direct, make & curate new performance.
Raised in the Bay Area and based in New York by way of Philadelphia, my background spans scripted, devised and physical theater, video art, and experience design.
I love plays that fall apart, that warp reality, or ask me to hold multiple realities at once. I love plays that experiment with the relationship between performer & audience, that can only be experienced live. And I especially love plays that happen in unexpected places, with unusual relationships to time.
Most recently, I directed the sold out run of my utopias, a play/potluck by Jay Stull in the Exponential Festival. Next season I will direct the world premiere of SEE/UNSEE by Lila Blue, a music-theater composition inspired by painter and mystic Hilma af Klint, at HERE Arts Center. This piece has received support from OPERA America and NYSCA, and was previously shared at Ars Nova (Discovery Series) and The Brick (PRISM Festival), in residence at Z Space, and developed in retreat at the Lake Lucille Project. I 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.
Alongside Matthew Antoci, I steward and co-curate SalOn!, a quarterly gathering of micro-acts founded by Theresa Buchheister in 2014 (@salonseriesbk). Previous collaborations include Brian Mertes, Pig Iron Theater Company, Team Sunshine Performance, and Headlong, among others. MFA Sarah Lawrence College, BA Brown University, Mercury Store Directing Lab, Headlong Performance Institute.
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