Biography
M.J. KANG is a playwright, actor, director and improvisor. She’s been awarded The Breathe Project 2022 New Play award, Theater J’s Expanding The Canon award (2022-24) and has been commissioned by Portland Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Blyth Festival Theater, Shakespeare in Action and AFO Solo Shorts (twice). Her plays have been produced in Toronto, NYC, and Los Angeles by Tarragon Theater, Theater Passe Muraille, Factory Theater, The Barrow Group, Cahoots Theater Projects, Raising Sun, Son of Semele, Playground-LA, East-West Players, Pan Asian Rep and many others. She’s part of the Playwrights Group at Company of Angels (third year), The Barrow Group’s Restorative Stories as well as Transformative Journeys with Seth Barrish (three years), the Writer’s Pool at Playground-LA (second year), and Dramatic Question Theater’s American Women. She has been playwright in residence at Nightwood Theater and Theater Passe Muraille and has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play. She’s also received many other awards, grants, fellowships, and nominations from Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Groundlings, UBC, Impro Theater and Westside Comedy Theater. As a personal storyteller, she has won 5 Moth story slams and her work has been featured on PBS, USA Today, NPR and the National Storytelling Festival. Her narration work on Scholastic’s THE GIRL FROM THE SEA was awarded a SOVAS Award (2022) for “Audiobook Narration – Teens – Best Voiceover” and she played Kwan Won-Ji on CBS’ Seal Team. She is currently filming a recurring guest starring part on a high profile new television show and was formerly a story editor/staff writer on HBO Max’s reboot of Degrassi. As a third degree black belt in taekwondo, she believes she can stop a car with her legs. She hopes she’ll never have to prove it.
