Kent Thompson joined the Denver Center Theatre Company in 2005 as Producing Artistic Director. In Denver he directed productions of Hamlet, Just Like Us, Other Desert Cities, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Plainsong, Eventide, Amadeus, The Liar and Measure for Measure, among others.
Two of Kent’s major accomplishments since moving to Denver have been the Colorado New Play Summit, a premier national festival for new American plays, and the establishment of the Women’s Voices Fund, an endowment that supports the development of new plays by women.
Prior to moving to Denver he was Producing Artistic Director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival for 16 years. In 1991 Kent created the Southern Writers’ Project (SWP), designed to commission and develop new plays that presented 16 world premieres during his tenure.
He served for eight years on the Board of Directors for Theatre Communications Group (TCG) and as its president for three years. He has served on peer review panels for the NEA (also chair), TCG, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Fulbright Scholars Program, The Wallace Funds, The Doris Duke Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among others.
