Tenara Calem is an ensemble theater maker, performer, playwright, and educator

based in Philadelphia, PA. Born abroad with deep roots in the Midwest, Tenara has worked both collaboratively and as a solo artist. As an ensemble maker she has worked with Lupine Performance Cooperative (Field Calls, Brian’s House, Miranda), Jonah Godfrey and Friends (The Bad Pirate Rock Show), and Pig Iron Theatre Company (Bartok’s Monster). As a solo artist she has created Me, More Normal (2017) and performed as her cabaret act Bitty Fitzleapord (2024).

Her written work has been featured all around the country, including with the Jewish Plays Project National Competition, the Young Playwrights Festival with Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Annual Midwestern Jewish Playwriting Contest at Continuum Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Her work has earned her a Young Playwright award nomination from the Dramatist’s Guild.

Tenara has worked as community engagement practitioner with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, FringeArts, Shakespeare in Clark Park, and The Barnes Foundation. Her praxis is based in consensus organizing for the arts, as developed by Seema Sueko and passed onto her through Rebecca Noon. Through mutually-empowering relationships with community stakeholders, Tenara’s community engagement seeks to co-create meaningful and relevant creative experiences with Philadelphians.

Tenara is also the Lead Facilitator in the Philadelphia-local performance company Lupine Performance Cooperative. Find out more at their website here.

Tenara is an educator, orienting the ethos of collaboration and experimentation in her pedagogical approach. You can learn more about her teaching work here.

This is her website. Photos by John C. Hawthorne, Emilie Krause, and Jennifer Strickland.