Kim Campbell
Development Director
Kim Campbell (they/them) is the development director of Dawn Theatre Project. Originally from New Jersey, they have made Chicago their home for many years, drawn here by the thriving arts community.
As an editor and a writer, Kim is a frequent contributor to The Chicago Reader and Third Coast Review. Kim has spent a career focusing on the performing arts (particularly theater and circus) as a critic as well as a director and artist. Kim is the former chief editor of CircusTalk News, and the founder of the Chicago-based circus company Semi-Circus, as well as former editor of American Circus Educators magazine.
Kim is a member of the American Theater Critics Association. In 2019, they were on the jury of FIRCO in Madrid (Circus Festival Iberoamericano). In 2021, they were on the voting committee for the International Circus Awards. In 2022, they were on the jury of the Circus International Film Festival. In 2022, they led a journalism residency at St. John’s International Circus Fest in Canada.
In Chicago, they act as communication manager for the International Physical Theater Festival (2022, 2023) and were on the selection committee and acted as the marketing and media director of the inaugural Chicago Circus & Performing Arts Festival.
Kim's Journey
“Whatever artistic project I am involved in, my work centers around facilitating creativity through effective communication. This stems back to my love of language and the written word in particular. I appreciate the power it has to connect us.
I started writing as a kid as a way to make sense of the world around me, and I still need this practice every day (avid journaler). From fiction writing, I expanded into literary editing and theater writing when my interest in storytelling broadened to the performing arts as well.
As someone who has always struggled to get out of my head and into my body, I turned my passion in a direction of growth and exploration as a way to connect, interpret and contribute to contemporary manifestations of the fringe arts, the folk arts and movement-based storytelling through circus, puppetry, burlesque, magic, dance and more. When my extroversion and planning routine wear me out, creativity is what replenishes me, especially when co-creating with others. I share my experiments and explorations often on my Instagram account @kimzyn.”