Jacob Zimmer is a theatre maker, process designer, facilitator and a dance dramaturge. Born in Cape Breton, growing up in Halifax and spending fifteen years in Toronto, Jacob now lives in Whitehorse. And enjoys traveling.

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Jacob is the Artistic Director of Nakai Theatre and the founding director of Small Wooden Shoe. His work engages the world in a curiously critical manner while maintaining the need to perform – to step up and to entertain.

Jacob also worked extensively in dance as a dramaturge with Dancemakers and the Centre for Creation in Toronto and in a dramaturgical collaboration with Ame Henderson and Public Recordings as well as having been a co-director of HUB 14, a rehearsal and performance studio in Toronto.

As a facilitator and process designer, Jacob is a past faculty member in Leadership at Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. With Misha Glouberman, he organized the UnConference on the Future(s) of Toronto Performance. He has facilitated unconference like events for Harbourfront Centre and LMDA as well as Nakai, Small Wooden Shoe and Dancemakers.

Jacob’s writing has been published in Canadian Theatre Review and C Magazine.
He has lead composition and performance workshops.across Canada.

As a featured speaker he gave the keynote address at Performance Creation Canada in Halifax (2008); spoke at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary (2010); Performance Creation Canada in Armstrong BC (2010); and has been an invited panelist for the Literary Managers and Dramaturges of the Americas, Canadian Stage, Canadian Dance Association, Society for Dance History Scholars and the Toronto Fringe Festival among others.

Jacob studied at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts and in 2004 he was a technical intern with The Wooster Group and studied Viewpoints, Suzuki and Composition with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in New York. Jacob received the 2008 Ken McDougall Award for emerging directors.