Anand Rajaram

Anand Rajaram is an actor, writer, director, puppeteer, mask performer, teacher and performance artist. He has worked with numerous theatre companies in Toronto. With clown-based dance-theatre company, CORPUS, he helped create the Dora-nominated show, Nuit Blance, and toured with that show and another CORPUS show, Escadron Volant/A Flock of Flyers, across Canada and Europe, and in performing Flock, also won the Gold medal in performance at the International Francophonie games (Olympic-style event for countries in the French commonwealth), subsequently touring the show to Benin, West Africa. With CORPUS he was also part of the successful kid's show, Four Square, for Corus Entertainment. Also with Corus Ent, he was writer and animatronic puppeteer for Snit on the show, Snit Station. His one-person mime show, Cowboys & Indians, (with musical accompaniment by accomplished musician, Bob Wiseman) won the Artist Spotlight Award at the Summerworks Theatre Festival. This show brought him to the attention of the Toronto Second City who hired him and with whom he created three shows, the first of which won a Canadian Comedy Award, the second of which was nominated for a Dora and all three of which brought him acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Due to his work with the Second City, he was asked to be a mentor/performer on The Second City's Next Comedy Legend tv show, a reality show that in Second City form parodies reality shows. He has also performed in a number of other tv shows, including playing a recurring principal role in the dramatic miniseries, Across The River To Motor City, and making a guest appearance in the Comedy Network's pseudo-reality show, Punched Up. He has a few features coming out as well as short films, some featured at the Toronto International Film Festival, including the film Death Threat, written and co-directed by Zarqa Nawaz, writer/creator of Little Mosque On The Prairie. He has also worked with director Mira Nair on the made-for-tv movie, My Own Country, and with director Deepa Mehta on the CBC radio broadcast of Funny Boy. He has appeared in many other CBC radio shows as well, both dramatic and comedic. He has a B.A in Theatre from the University of Waterloo.