Judith "Jude" Pamela Kelly, (born March 1954), is a British theatre director and producer. She is a director of the WOW Foundation, which organises the annual Women of the World Festival, founded in 2010 by Kelly. From 2006 to 2018, she was Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre in London. Early life and education Jude Kelly was born in Liverpool, and her love of theatre dates back to her childhood there, where she would put on plays in her backyard with the neighbours' children: "I've always had a passion for telling a story," she has said. She attended Calder High School for Girls, until she was 13, when it became part of Quarry Bank Comprehensive School, where she was taught by John Lennon's old headmaster, William Pobjoy, who encouraged his pupils to be creative. Already determined to become a director, she chose to study drama at The University of Birmingham, one of a small number of single honours degree courses available at the time. Kelly graduated with a BA in Drama and Theatre Arts from Birmingham in 1975 where she was a contemporary of comedienne, writer and actress Victoria Wood. Career Kelly founded Solent People's Theatre, a touring company, in 1976, and was artistic director of the Battersea Arts Centre from 1980 to 1985. She became the founding director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse from 1990 to 2002, where as artistic director and then CEO she established it as an acknowledged centre for excellence. As the artistic director, she sat on the National Advisory Committee for Culture, Creativity and Education (NACCCE), led by Ken Robinson, that in 1999 wrote the All Our Futures report, which led to significant government investment in young people's creative and cultural education. She has directed more than 100 productions, including for Chichester Festival Theatre, the English National Opera (ENO), the Châtelet in Paris, France, and London's West End. Kelly left the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2002 to found Metal Culture, providing artistic laboratory spaces in Liverpool, Peterborough and Southend, funded by Arts Council England and local authorities. Metal provides a platform where creative hunches and ideas can be pursued; it promotes cross-art collaborations and projects to affect the built environment, people, communities and philosophies. Among her many successes as a director, Kelly's production of Singin' in the Rain transferred to the Royal National Theatre as one of the National's visiting productions and was awarded the