Educated at Quarry Bank, Liverpool and the University of Birmingham.

Founding artistic director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

She became artistic director of the South Bank Centre in 2005.

(Source: BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour hour profile: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qj7jd/profiles/jude-kelly)

At the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 1997 Kelly directed Patrick Stewart as Othello, in what has become known as the "photo-negative" Othello: Stewart was surrounded by an otherwise black cast in a city known for its high percentage of African-Americans where racial tensions erupt periodically.