Liza Balkan

Liza Balkan is a Canadian theatre artist working across disciplines as a director, actor, writer, and educator. Her Broadway career includes a 1985 appearance in the musical West Side Story. She has also performed the production at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

As a stage performer, Balkan has worked with numerous companies across Canada. Her credits include Sylvia at Belfry Theatre, It's All True with the Great Canadian Theatre Company, The Winter's Tale at the National Arts Centre, The Stronger Variations with Theatre Rusticle at Harbourfront, and Golda's Balcony at Winnipeg Jewish Theatre. Her performance in Still the Night, a production involving Theatre Passe Muraille, Tova Entertainment, and Tapestry that toured nationally, earned her Toronto's Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Balkan's directing work spans opera, classical theatre, and new work. Her credits include Opera Brief's 6 & 7 for Tapestry New Opera Works, Skylight and Trying at Persephone Theatre, Half an Hour as part of the Shaw Festival Director's Project, Bunnicula for Theatre Athena, Orchids for Marquis Entertainment, Good Woman of Setzuan, the premiere of Enemies at Ryerson Theatre School, and Pavlov's Brother at the Toronto Fringe Festival.

On screen, Balkan appeared in Asghar Massombagi's film Khaled in 2001 and in Atom Egoyan's 2015 drama Remember, in which she portrayed the daughter-in-law of Christopher Plummer's protagonist. In voice work, she is known for playing Amy Mizuno in the third and fourth seasons of the English-language adaptation of Sailor Moon.

Balkan teaches at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario.