Jana O'Connor - Bio

Jana O’Connor is an Edmonton-born performer, producer, theatre instructor and playwright and screenwriter. She is best known as a cast member/writer on the national CBC Radio sketch comedy show, The Irrelevant Show, and as a cast member and writer on season 5 of the AMPIA award-nominated sketch series CAUTION: May Contain Nuts. Jana is now delighted to be a guest contributor to CBC Radio’s Because News.

Jana’s first screenplay, Picture It, is now in post-production with GIFT: Girls in Film and Television.

Jana has been a roving performer for many years, bringing her unique and colourful characters to the Edmonton International Street Performers Festival, and to her work as an Artist on the Wards for the University of Alberta Hospital.

She was honoured to be the Artistic Director for the City of Edmonton’s Olympic Torch Relay Celebration in 2010, an event that spanned eight sites along the relay route, and showcased nearly two hundred of the city’s incredible local artists.

Jana was awarded one of seven 2010 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Awards for her work as a playwright. The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Foundation established this program of awards for emerging artists to support and encourage promising artists, early in their careers, while also serving to raise the profile of the arts in Alberta. In 2015, Jana was selected as a recipient of the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Award.