Liza Balkan MFA

Liza Balkan is an accomplished director, educator, writer, librettist, and actor with a professional career spanning over 43 years. She holds an MFA in Directing from York University, Canada, and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Her extensive training includes the Shaw Festival Director’s Project and various World Stage Masterclasses, where she studied with prominent figures such as Peter Hinton, John Barton, and Mike Alfreds. Liza has also completed multiple assistant director internships with notable directors including Neil Munro, Tadeusz Bradecki, and Marti Maraden.

Liza's qualifications reflect her commitment to both the arts and social education. She holds certifications in Pathways to Human Rights from Humber College, Indigenous Canada from the University of Alberta, and has undergone anti-harassment, bystander intervention, and intimacy/consent-based training. Additionally, she has engaged in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion training through the Association of Acting Coaches and Educators in Canada, ensuring that her teaching and creative environments are respectful, inclusive, and safe.

Her areas of expertise include acting, theatre and opera directing, writing for opera, documentary theatre, and consent-based practices. Liza also has a strong interest in collaboration and conflict resolution, helping to create healthy and courageous spaces for creativity.

Among her numerous achievements, Liza has received Canada’s prestigious Dora Mavor Moore Award for Acting/Performance in a Musical and the Tyrone Guthrie Award from the Stratford Festival. Her critically acclaimed documentary theatre project Out The Window was produced at Toronto’s International Luminato Festival in 2018 and later published in 2020. Additionally, her work Gould’s Wall at Toronto’s Koerner Hall was nominated for Best New Opera and Best Opera Production at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2022. She was also nominated for the Betty Mitchell Award for her acting/performance in a musical.

Liza’s professional publications include Out The Window, a documentary theatre project published in 2020 by Sirocco Drama (ISBN: 978-1927922927). She continues to work across multiple disciplines, directing theatre and opera, writing librettos, creating new works, and mentoring young artists. Liza’s passion for fostering inclusionary practices is central to her teaching, where she strives to build joyful, respectful, and rigorous spaces for creative expression

Liza Balkan MFA,

Lead Tutor - Acting