Amaka Umeh
President's Award
Award Sponsor BBPA
Amaka Umeh is a Tkaronto-based storyteller of Nigerian (Igbo & Ikwerre) origin. A graduate of the Musical Theatre Performance Program at the Randolph Academy for Performing Arts, she explores the provocative, liberatory, and transformative powers of investigating truth through imagination and pretense while wrestling with the limitations of the spoken word as a vehicle for communication and understanding.
Their work has been generously recognized with a Dora Mavor Moore Award, a Toronto Theatre Critics’ Association Award, and two MyEntertainmentWorld Critics’ Pick Award nominations. Amaka also completed the Stratford Festival Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre, Factory Theatre Mechanicals and Toronto Fringe T.E.N.T. Programs.
Selected credits: Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Stratford Festival); Audiobook narration for Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi (ECW Press); 00 in The Wolves (Howland Company/Crow’s); Abigail in A Christmas Carol (Grand Theatre); Spiker in James and the Giant Peach (Young People’s Theatre).