Kinny Gardner

Birth Name: Kenneth Gardner

Height: 182 cm

Kinny Gardner B.E.M., B.C.A.a., D.A. (hon). Charismatic, popular and low maintenance, Kinny was born in Edinburgh sometime in the last century, and is 58 years old. He studied Classical Ballet, gra ...Show More

Kinny Gardner B.E.M., B.C.A.a., D.A. (hon). Charismatic, popular and low maintenance, Kinny was born in Edinburgh sometime in the last century, and is 58 years old. He studied Classical Ballet, graduating in 1976, and at The Martha Graham School in New York in 1978, studying with Martha Graham herself. As a soloist choir boy he sang the War Requiem with Sir Peter Pears, under the baton of Sir Benjamin Britten, for the 1968 Edinburgh International Festival. He has featured in London’s West End in early casts of ‘Godspell’ and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, and enjoyed a year in ‘Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap’. Rep. and tours include ‘Chicago’, ‘The Pirates of Penzance’, ‘Marat/Sade’, ‘Adrian Mole’, ‘The Threepenny Opera’, ‘Assassins’, ‘Café Debris’ and ‘Cabaret’, with work at Queens Hornchurch, Manchester Royal Exchange, Perth Theatre, Wolsey Ipswich and New Victoria Stoke on Trent. For 27 years Kinny has been a principal guest solo artist with The Lindsay Kemp Company, with whom he has toured the world’s greatest opera houses. He co-founded The Krazy Kat Theatre Company (Sign Language Arts) in 1982 and remains Artistic Director. He is Development Adviser to BBC Cbeebies, working on new mainstream Sign Language television projects. A fluent B.S.L. sign language artist, he received the BBC Community Hero Award for Services to The Arts in 2014. This was followed in 2015 by the British Citizens Award, and in 2016 Kinny was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, receiving the British Empire Medal for services to Theatre and Disability. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary degree from The University of Wolverhampton, giving him the title ‘Doctor of Arts’. Hide