Kennedy C. MacKinnon
KENNEDY C. MACKINNON is the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Link Canada and is affiliated with the Shakespeare Link in the UK. She is an actor, director, teacher and coach. Most recently she created and directed Hamlet, Alone and Drowning Ophelia for the Shakespeare Link International Festival in Wales and co-Directed/co-adapted the NAC/NEPA production of Death of the Chief. With SLC she Co-Directed a workshop production of Signing the Bard – Romeo and Juliet produced by Equity Showcase Theatre. This exciting workshop was a collaboration between hearing and deaf actors and the first project SLC and Shakespeare Link participated on together. She spearheaded The Africa Project: Dance with Us, Not with AIDS and was Co-Creator/Co-Director of Medida Por Medida (Measure for Measure), A Tempestade and Sonho Nocturno – Dream at Night and is very excited about SLC’s continued partnership with Montes Namuli in Mozambique.
Kennedy is on faculty at the Humber College Theatre School where she is Head of the Voice and teaches Shakespeare. She is the creator and coordinator of the Summer Shakespeare Intensive. She spent 3 seasons at the Stratford Festival of Canada as a Voice Coach where she had the privilege to apprentice under the guidance of Janine Pearson. She has taught for the Education Department in Stratford for 9 years. She is a graduate from the Stratford Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training where she also taught.
Kennedy has taught and given workshops for Native Earth Theatre, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, George Brown Theatre School, Equity Showcase Theatre/Player’s Academy, University of Windsor, York University, Randolph School for the Performing Arts, YPT and the National Voice Intensive. Favorite acting roles include The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Anne in The Constant Heart, Lady Elizabeth in God Say Amen and Venus in Venus and Adonis. She coaches for film, television, radio and at theatres around Toronto. In Denver, Colorado, Kennedy interned as assistant to Gary Logan (Head of Voice and Speech) at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts/ National Theater Conservatory. She holds an MFA in Acting, a Diploma in Voice Teacher Training (York University) and a BFA in Acting (University of Windsor).