Aliya Kanani

Aliya Kanani

ALIYA KANANI is a Toronto-based comedian, Canadian academy award-nominated actress, writer, producer, entertainer and vagabond, known for her playful and mischievous personality.

 

As a standup comedian, Aliya has enjoyed performing on major stages around the world. Her solo show, “Where You From, From?” debuted with sold out shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Aliya then went on to sell out the complete run of her show at the Just for Laughs Festival in the same year! She continued to tour her show internationally, including sell out shows at Fringe World festival in Perth, Sydney Comedy Festival, Toronto Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe.

 

She has showcased with Standup NBC in New York at the renowned Gotham Comedy Club, Zoofest/Off-JFL, Chicago’s NBC/Second City Breakout Comedy Festival, SiriusXM’s Top Comic, Montreal’s LadyFest, the Seattle International Comedy Competition and most recently performed at the 2023 Johannesburg International Comedy Festival. You can catch some of her comedy on networks including CBC LOL and SiriusXM.

 

In 2022, Aliya was nominated for a Canadian academy award for Best Performance by a Lead Actor for her role as Ms. Hina in the Best Motion Picture film Scarborough.

 

She is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory and was selected to be part of the Bob Curry Fellowship. Shortly after completing the program, Aliya co-created, co-wrote and co- starred in the wacky web series, Juicy. She has since continued writing, including joining the writers’ room for Abroad, a sketch comedy show that just wrapped on production. Most recently she was selected to showcase for Just for Laughs Standup & Pitch with a show she created called HYPE, which is as cool as it sounds. Stay tuned for more on that!

 

Though Aliya has toured doing comedy internationally, including performing in standup in both English and French, she still brags that her greatest accomplishment is the time she made a man throw up from laughing too hard.