BA Honors (University of Alberta), Certificate in Acting (National Theatre School of Canada), MFA (Columbia University)

Jonathan Seinen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC.  His professional theatre practice includes work as an award-winning director, actor, creator, and Artistic Producer of Architect Theatre. His directing spans devised theatre, adaptations of classical work, and new play development. Credits include: Boys In Chairs Collective’s Access Me, for which he won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction; Jeff Ho/Ho Ka Kei’s LAMBDA Literary Award-winning and Governor General’s Award-nominated play Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land); and Black Boys by Saga Collectif, which premiered at Toronto’s Buddies In Bad Times Theatre and toured Canada, including a run at The Cultch. In 2016, he was Artist-in-Residence with Vancouver’s the frank theatre company, and in 2020, Jonathan was awarded the John Hirsch Prize for Directing from the Canada Council for the Arts. In the 2025-2026 season, he will be directing The Romeo Initiative by Trina Davies at Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon.

Through Architect Theatre, co-founded with Georgia Beaty, he collaborated on a number of collective creation plays confronting environmental, social, and political topics, such as Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show (Theatre Passe Muraille and a national tour, including rEvolver Festival) and Like There’s No Tomorrow (based on research along the route of the then-proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline, directed by Anita Rochon). Architect Theatre is currently developing a number of new texts for the stage, including Weyburn 1959 by Arthur Milner, I Quit The Band by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, and Home Computer by Nora Mourant.

As an actor, he has appeared on stages across Canada, including Theatre Calgary, the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, and Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops, as well as in Toronto productions of Nick Green’s Dora Award-winning Body Politic (lemonTree creations), Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (Studio 180), and Sean Dixon’s A God In Need Of Help (Tarragon Theatre).

Jonathan was previously an Assistant Professor at the University of Regina (2022-2025), where he taught in the BFA Devised Performance and Theatre Creation program, and in the Theatre Department at SUNY Buffalo State University (2020-2022). He has also directed productions at the National Theatre School and Studio 58 at Langara College.