2008 Princess Grace Award
Theater Apprenticeship
Nominated by: The Wooster Group

Additional Grants:
2024 Special Project Grant
2013 Works in Progress Residency

Kaneza Schaal works in theater, film, and opera. She believes theater is a model for participatory society. By creating performances that speak many formal, cultural, historical, aesthetic, and experiential languages she seeks expansive audiences. Schaal’s work has shown in divergent contexts, from NYC galleries, to courtyards in Vietnam, to East African amphitheaters, to European opera houses, to US public housing, to rural auditoriums in the United Arab Emirates. Domestically, her work has shown at The Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, The Shed, Walker Arts Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, REDCAT, The New Victory Theater, and New Orleans Center for Contemporary Art. Schaal is Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, United States Artists Fellowship, SOROS Art Migration and Public Space Fellowship, Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness Award, Stern Opera Artists Award, and she directed the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar.