Photo: Jonas Jeramiassen Tomter
Actress / playwright
Pendry has written and produced over fifty pieces for the theatre, many of which have been performed internationally. She has a reputation as a political and controversial artist because of the red thread of social commentary in the work, and her signature use of dark humor.
Pendry has given workshops in acting / script development / character development at (amongst others) the National Theatre Schools in Belgrade and Oslo, the Trondheim Academy of Arts, the School of Architecture and Design Oslo, the Actors Centre Oslo. She has given workshops in media activism at the NY School of Design, Oslo School of Art and Design. She is a guest lecturer at the Prosjektskolen Art School in Oslo.
She has also produced a series of interactive electronic works both solo and in collaboration, in particular "sense:less" which used artificial intelligence and virtual reality to create a dramatic theatrical atmosphere. (Awarded Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 1996). Other IE pieces have been presented at the Rotterdam DEAF festival, the Istanbul Biennale, the National Theatre, Oslo.
Her play Pornography was nominated for the Ibsen Prize 2009, and her dark drama for teens Erasmus Tyrannus Rex won the Ibsen Prize in 2010.
Sex In The War Zone - her piece on war tourism in the Balkans was awarded the National Performing Arts Hub Theatre Prize 2002. The play performed across Europe including the Cartier Foundation in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm.
Her collaboration with choreographer Hege Haagenruud - The Rest Is Silence . . . was nominated for the Norwegian Critics Association award for best dance piece in 2016.
She was a presenter for feminist radio station RadiOrakel in Oslo for 12 years until 2013 and is an associate playwright at the Norwegian Centre For New Playwriting (Dramatikkens hus) in Oslo (2013- present.)
Pendry was an actor with Alan Lucien Øyen’s Winter Guests dance-theatre ensemble for 10 years - performing regularly at the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo, and internationally.
A comprehensive biography of her life and work by Marie Laland Ekeli - Demonologi: Kate Pendrys liv og verk - was published in 2017 by Transit Forlag and became a Tronsmo bookshop number one bestseller.
Photo: Maiken Larsen
Her current popular podcast Kate Pendry’s Corona Chronicles is a darkly comic and reflected look at the Corona/Covid pandemic as it unfolds in 2020/21. Available on Spotify and major streaming platforms – produced by Sea Shell Media.
Pendry is a co-creator of - and features in - the documentary film Human Tsunami: Trump – which follows the film-makers’ attendance of Donald J. Trump’s inauguration in Washington in 2017. Produced by Storyline Nord, premiered 2020.
Photo: Jonas Jeramiassen Tomter