April 2, 2019
Kenny Ramos
Kenny Ramos is Diegueño Iipay/Kumeyaay from the Barona Band of Mission Indians. He started his performing career on the kitchen table of his home on the Barona Indian Reservation in San Diego County and has since followed his passions for theater and learning around the world. After graduating from UCLA with a BA in American Indian Studies, Kenny worked in the Los Angeles urban Native community, which led to his involvement as a community actor in Cornerstone Theater Company’s 2016 production of Larissa FastHorse’s immersive theatrical event, “Urban Rez”, an artistic experience that changed the course of Kenny’s life and career. After “Urban Rez”, Kenny was invited to join the Artist Ensemble at Native Voices at the Autry, the country’s only Equity Native American theater company, where he has performed in numerous readings and workshops of plays written by Native American playwrights at the Autry Museum and at La Jolla Playhouse. Kenny has also appeared in the world premiere productions of Randy Reinholz’s “Off the Rails” (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Dillon Chitto’s “Bingo Hall” (Native Voices at the Autry), and Mary Kathryn Nagle’s “Return to Niobrara” (The Kennedy Center, The Rose Theater Omaha). Other regional credits include: “Crazy for You, High School Musical” (Starlight Bowl); “Joseph…Dreamcoat”, “42nd Street”, “Cats, Aida” (Moonlight Stage Productions). In 2018, Kenny created and performed original pieces about land acknowledgement and two spirit identity at Grand Performances, Southern Oregon University’s “Queer Indigenous Gathering”, and UCLA’s “This is Bruin Life” in Pauley Pavilion. Kenny has also studied Theatre of the Oppressed at the Center for Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, Indigenous Contemporary Dance with Dancing Earth in Santa Fe, NM, and also participated in Cornerstone’s 2018 Institute Summer Residency in Queens, NY, where he worked on “The Cardinal: A Journey Through Flushing”. In 2019, Kenny received First Peoples Fund’s Cultural Capital Fellowship, as well as Theater Communications Group’s Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship for Exceptional Merit, in partnership with Cornerstone, becoming the first American Indian actor to receive the award. The Fox Fellowship will support Kenny’s work on Cornerstone’s upcoming production of Larissa FastHorse’s new decolonial theatrical experience, “Native Nation”, and he will join the Cornerstone Ensemble for the duration of his fellowship. Kenny seeks to increase tribal communities’ access to theatre and to reclaim the use of storytelling and performance as a way to heal and empower Indigenous communities and reconnect everyone to the land that unites us.
