Brenda Kamino has been seen as a performer on many of Canada’s best known stages for over 40 years. A veteran performer of the Shaw Festival, she has created many roles in new plays at such theatres as Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre and Young Peoples’ Theatre in Toronto as well as the Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg and Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary.
Her theatrical career has taken her from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to the Citadel in Edmonton in shows as varied as the Dora Award Nominated “Naomi’s Road” to “M. Butterfly”, working with such directors as Canadians Douglas Campbell, Peter Hinton, Jackie Maxwell, Neil Munro, Dennis Foon, Sue Miner, Ed Roy, Sally Han, Vinetta Strombergs, Ron Jenkins, Nina Aquino and Guillermo Verdecchia, as well as British Director Tudor Davies and American Directors Lane Nishikawa, David Levine and Raul Aranas.
Her performance in “suicide notes” by Kenneth Williams for Toronto’s Summerworks Festival, garnered her recognition for Outstanding Performance by Now Magazine. Her television and film career includes over 100 guest and lead performances and many years as host, narrator, radio artist and improviser.
Concurrent to her acting career, she apprenticed with Dennis Foon and Maja Ardal at YPT in directing, with Layne Coleman at Theatre Passe Muraille as an Artistic Director in Training and with Iris Turcott at CanStage as Dramaturge and Playwright.
Her singing has taken her her into the world of Pantomime in “Aladdin” with Karen Kain at the Royal Alexandra in Toronto, “The King and I” as Lady Thiang as well as an original Cabaret show “Alive and in Colour” which played night clubs in Toronto with her buddy, Serje Marquis..
RECENTLY
“AT THE END OF THE DAY” directed by Brenley Charkow, won the Digital Pivot and Young Reviewers Awards at the Digital Fringe in July. Brenda wrote and starred. Brenda guested in a Samantha Wan directed webseries for young audiences called “LADY ADA’S SECRET SOCIETY”. 2021: Audio Book “A CHORUS OF MUSHROOMS”. 2019: “CARTER” series, starring Jerry O’Connell, did a second season in North Bay. Sony International and CTV and Amaze Pictures brought Brenda back together with Jerry O’Connell, Sydney Poitier Heartsong and Kristian Bruun. 2019 – Played the terrifying villain in WARIGAMI, a 10 episode webseries for CBC and CW, by First Love Films. 2018: Mieko Ouchi’s brand new script “BURNING MOM”, a workshop reading for fu-Gen at Factory with Brenda as Mieko’s mother in a solo performance, dir. Diana Belshaw; “THE GLASS CASTLE” a feature film starring Brie Larson just released August 11. In 2015: “BYSTANDERS” for Gallery TPW, the monologue centrepiece of an installation exhibit commissioned from Obie Award Winning New York creator/director, David Levine.
2022 PRODUCING PROJECT
Brenda has teamed up with her friend Andrew Moodie with their company, RENAISSANCE THEATRE, to produce works that deserve a new life. “BACHELOR MAN” by Winston Kam was given a workshop and a reading for the first time since 1987. New: “RIOT”, Moodie’s award winning script is undergoing a rewrite for a live-streamed production in 2022.
Brenda Kamino 