Kate Rigg
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Arts Actor Festival Film Theatre Person
Kate Rigg is well known in the Asian American community as a comedian, speaker, actor and lead singer for the band "Slanty Eyed Mama". She grew up in Toronto Canada where was a regular on the CBC teen news show "What's New?" giving movie reviews for teenagers by teenagers. She also appeared in the CTV Drama The Campbells and throughout HighSchool won awards for writing and acting before heading to college in Melbourne Australia at her fathers alma mater The University of Melbourne. In Australia, she wrote and directed several plays outside of college and received the Comedy Festival Award at Melbourne University as well as an Australia Council Grant for her first one person show "m/Other/land" which was produced at La Mama Theater in Melbourne and subsequently at the Tarragon Theater in Toronto.
She was accepted into Australia's prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney but ultimately decided to attend the Juilliard School in New York where she won the Interarts Award for inter-disciplinary work. After Juilliard, Kate worked in several off Broadway productions including Dogeaters at the Public Theater directed by MIchael Greif, The Vagina Monologues directed by Joe Mantello, and several regional plays. Kate has also built a stand up and sketch comedy career parallel to acting. With a debut at Carolines on Broadway she developed the show "Kate's Chink-O-Rama"which toured nationally to great acclaim and did stints at The HBO Time Warner Workspace in L.A. and PSNBC in New York. Her play "Birth of a nAsian" was invited to the Smithsonian Institute and she wrote three plays while in various residencies at the Mark Taper Forum Los Angeles. She continues to work in the Asian/Pacific Islander community as a comic and speaker between acting engagements.