Kaneza Schaal is a New York City based artist working in theater, opera, and film. Her work has shown in divergent contexts from NYC galleries, to courtyards in Vietnam, to East African amphitheaters, to European opera houses, to USA public housing, to rural auditoriums in the UAE. By creating art that speaks many formal, cultural, historical, aesthetic, and experiential languages she seeks expansive audiences.
Schaal received a 2025 Doris Duke Artist Award, 2024 LA Opera Stern Artist Award, 2023 Project& Evolving Democracy Fellowship, 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, 2019 United States Artists Fellowship, SOROS Art Migration and Public Space Fellowship, Joyce Award, LMCC Alumni Award, 2018 Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness Award, 2017 MAP Fund Award, 2016 Creative Capital Award, and was an Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford Stage.
In her commitment to artist-centered institutions, Schaal co-founded the Gihanga Institute for Contemporary Art in Kigali, Rwanda; The Collective Practice a resource sharing structure for theater makers; and served on the board of PS122/PSNY; and the leadership council for the artist employment and guaranteed income initiative Creatives Rebuild New York. She is currently a co-director of Under The Radar Festival in New York City.
Schaal is an Arts-in-Education advocate. She created arts exchange platforms at three prisons in upstate New York and a program for New York State’s maximum-security facility for girls. Schaal’s education work has spanned from universities to community centers to public high schools; from workshops for professional artists, to professional development training for teachers, to intergenerational collaborations between elders and teens. Schaal taught an Atelier course at Princeton University with Elevator Repair Service and has lectured at Yale University, CT, Wesleyan University, CT, New York University, University of The Arts, PA and Xavier, LA. She taught a course at Harvard University on theater and social practice, and served as the 2021 Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.
Schaal’s work has also been supported by OPERA America, Onasis Foundation, New England Foundation for The Arts, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, FACE Foundation Contemporary Theater grant, Theater Communications Group, and a Princess Grace George C. Wolfe Award.