The daughter of the actors Maria Charles and Robin Hunter, Kelly Hunter grew up in London and attended the Lady Margaret School in Parsons Green, followed by the Arts Educational Schools in London, which she left when she was 16. Her sister is the stage manager Samantha Hunter. She was married to the theatre director Simon Usher with whom she has two sons, Albert Usher (born 1996) and Charlie Usher (born 1998). She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Flute Theatre, a company which produces the works of William Shakespeare for interactive audiences. She lives in South West London.
Since 2006 she has made occasional international tours as The Mother in the Icelandic theatre group Vesturport's popular production of Metamorphosis, having originated the role at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith.[4]
Hunter is the founder and Artistic Director of Flute Theatre, a touring company which performs the works of Shakespeare for interactive audiences.[10] Her production of Hamlet, who's there?, in which she played Gertrude, had an international tour throughout 2016. Flute's other productions which have also toured the international Shakespeare festivals include The Tempest and Twelfth Night.
Hunter first began working with children with autism during her time with the RSC in 2002, when she set up her own company, Touchstone Shakespeare Theatre, to work with children, some with autism, who had little if any access to the Arts. Through this work she created and developed The Hunter Heartbeat Method, a distinctive methodology which uses Shakespeare's rhythmic language and physical gesture to release communicative blocks within children with all levels of autism, including children who are non-verbal. The methodology is being studied as a long-term research project at Ohio State University.[15][16]
A DVD Dreams and Voices (2007), documents the early games of the methodology and is available from the National Autistic Society.
