Isabel Kanaan

Biography

Isabel Kanaan is a Second City graduate and Seneca College Acting for Camera and Voice alumna. She has been awarded the NBC Universal Bob Curry Fellowship. She is a member of CBC’s sketch comedy troupe Air Farce, the Canadian Comedy Award winning sketch troupe The Sketchersons, and Second City’s House Ensemble and Educational Company.

Filipino-born Canadian Isabel Kanaan was recognized as one of RBC’s Top 25 Canadian Immigrants, for her work as an actor and a fierce advocate for better representation of queer, immigrant people of colour in the media.

Kanaan began her acting career at the age of 10, when she was still in the Philippines. But when she immigrated to Burlington in 2008 at age 16, she felt discouraged because she didn’t see people like herself — a queer, immigrant, person of colour — on television.

She regularly performs with the Asian Canadian theatre company fu-GEN Theatre and the Filipino Canadian theatre company Carlos Bulosan Theatre. She even co-wrote and performed in CBT’s production Anak. She is also known for her lead role in the series Haunted or Hoax, which won the NYC Web Fest’s Audience Choice Award.