Kaneza Schaal & Cornell Alston

Kaneza Schaal is a New York City-based theater artist. Her recent work GO FORTH premiered at Performance Space New York and then showed at the Genocide Memorial Amphitheater in Kigali, Rwanda. In Fall 2017 GO FORTH was presented at Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and in Cairo, Egypt at the International Contemporary Theater Festival. Schaal received a 2017 MAP Fund award, 2016 Creative Capital Award, and is the current Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford Stage. Schaal’s work has been supported by Baryshnikov Arts Center, Performance Space New York, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 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, and Dean Moss has brought her to venues including Centre Pompidou, Royal Lyceum Theater Edinburgh, The Whitney Museum, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Cornell Alston is a longtime member of Rehabilitation Through the Arts, a not-for-profit that uses the arts as a springboard to teach life skills to individuals both inside and outside of state correctional facilities. He initiated the Youth Empowerment Through the Arts initiative that launched in Queens NY, and he continues to work as an arts-in-education advocate. Alston performed and collaborated with Kaneza Schaal on PLEASE, BURY ME at Baryshnikov Arts Center and GO FORTH during a Performance Space 122, RAMP residency. Other performance highlights include: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 12 Angry Men, and the title role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.