Our Adjudicator, Liza Balkan….

Liza Balkan is a Toronto based artist who has spent over three decades working in the theatre. She

trained as an actor in New York City where she spent the first 8 Years of her career before returning to

Canada. She is an accomplished creator, director, writer, librettist, teacher, coach, singer, former dancer

and Dora Award – winning actor. Since 2001, her freelance directing credits have included opera, site

specific theatre productions, the development of new work, musical theatre, plays involving classical,

contemporary and verbatim text, and productions with young artists and students at the university

level. She has also assistant directed productions at the Stratford Festival, National Arts Centre, Shaw

Festival and Soulpepper Theatre Company. The Shaw Festival invited Liza into their highly esteemed

Directors’ Project in 2007. She was also welcomed as an artist into the 2011 BASH programme at

Canadian Stage. Liza has been an Artist in Residence with Crows Theatre and The Theatre Centre and her

company, Window Collective, co-produced and directed her documentary project Out The Window,

which played to sold out houses at the Theatre Centre in Toronto in March 2012. She collaborated with

composer Lembit Beecher in creating the song cycle Looking at Spring, which premiered in Vermont in

2014 and will have performances in Canada soon!

Liza’s work as an actor has included productions at the National Arts Centre, Theatre Passe

Muraille, Theatre Rusticle, Belfry Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, PTE, Winnipeg Jewish Theatre,

Persephone Theatre, Blyth Festival, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Elgin /Winter Garden, Thousand

Islands Playhouse, Kennedy Centre, Wash. DC and Theatre for the New City (NYC). She received a Dora

Mavor Moore Award for her work in Theresa Tova’s Still The Night and was nominated for Calgary’s

Betty Mitchell award during the show’s Cross Canada Tour. Liza was one of the voices for Sailor Mercury

on the series Sailor Moon. Liza appears in Atom Egoyan’s latest feature film, Remember.

Liza has been a movement instructor for the Birmingham Conservatory at the Stratford Festival

and has been a guest artist and director at the University of Windsor, Royal Conservatory of Music,

Ryerson Theatre School, Canadian College of Performing Arts (CCPA), St. Clair College, Armstrong Acting

Studios and Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts.