Kaneza Schaal is a New York City-based theater artist. Her new project JACK & was co-commissioned by Walker Arts Center, REDCAT, On The Boards, PICA, and Center for Contemporary Art Cincinnati, and will show at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and New York Live Arts.  In 2018, Schaal received a 2018 Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness award and was nominated for a “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Performer. She also received the 2017 MAP Fund award, 2016 Creative Capital Award, and was an Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford Stage.

Her new work in development, CARTOGRAPHY, which will premiere at The Kennedy Center, was workshopped through New Victory Theater Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi, and The Public Theater with a Brooklyn College residency. Her piece GO FORTH premiered at Performance Space 122's COIL Festival and then showed at the Genocide Memorial Amphitheater in Kigali, Rwanda; LMCC’s River-to-River Festival; Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans; Cairo International Contemporary Theater Festival in Egypt; and at her alma mater Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Schaal’s work has also been supported by the Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Theater Communications Group, and a Princess Grace George C. Wolfe Award. Her work with The Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service, Richard Maxwell/New York City Players, Claude Wampler, Jim Findlay, and Dean Moss has brought her to venues including Centre Pompidou, Royal Lyceum Theater Edinburgh, the Whitney Museum, and MoMA.