Creative

Actor

Andrea McKenzie is a Scottish Actor, Writer and Director. She trained at Edinburgh College, Scotland and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York. A bold, energetic, versatile performer, she has worked in theatres and outdoor venues across the UK, America and Canada.

Select press:

“Formidable stage presence” (North West End)

“The most striking acting came from Andrea McKenzie” (Edinburgh Fringe Review)

“It is well performed all round with McKenzie, particularly, showing both comic mastery and versatility” (All Edinburgh Theatre)

“McKenzie also has a stunning singing voice that tugged at our heart strings” (Broadway Baby)

You can view full acting CV on Spotlight

Or watch showreel on YouTube

Writer

Andrea is one quarter of play writing collective 4PLAY. She has written six plays, her latest, HUNT, is a dark comedy about survivalism, feminism, and AI. It previewed at the Traverse Theatre December 25:

“a darkly comic and highly enjoyable piece. Performed by McKenzie herself alongside Deborah Whyte, both actors bring formidable stage presence and comic precision to the piece. Two women of a certain age have fled AI-ravaged cities for a Highland hideaway, an apocalypse of sorts, though the immediate concern seems to be whether they remembered to bring a kettle. The tone is playful and anarchic, with songs, dances, and a knowing mockery of survivalist tropes, but there’s real bite beneath the humour… lending the piece genuine emotional weight. The plot veers gleefully into the unexpected… It’s bold, funny, unsettling, and oddly joyous. As with much good dark comedy, you laugh first and then realise what you’re laughing at”

– Greg Holstead, North West End

Also with 4Play at the Traverse Theatre, riotous comedy The Pervs and Plans of Onlyfans: which follows middle aged single mum April fighting the cost of living crisis by dabbling in the erotic. The play was acted by Andrea McKenzie and Sean Langtree and sold out due to ‘exceptional demand,’ you can view an extract on YouTube here.

Butterflies and Benefits, a hard hitting take on motherhood and poverty, sold out the Traverse Theatre in December 2024. It was written with the support of Playwrights’ Studio Scotland’s Mentorship Programme, and developed from an earlier play After Party which was shortlisted for the Scottish Short Play Award. You can watch an interview about the play’s themes and development here.

Being Normal – The Musical: how to make a song and dance out of everyday life, is a collaboration with multi award winning musician and composer Malcolm MacFarlane, and performed by Andrea McKenzie, Laverne Edmonds and Emily Copas. Andrea and Malcolm are prolific song writers and are looking for a producer to develop the stage play and a film. It had a preview to sold out audiences at the Traverse Theatre with 4Play:

“Edinburgh company 4Play offer a tantalisingly impressive evening of four short plays… Andrea McKenzie’s Being Normal, a 30–minute musical (with excellent songs by Malcolm MacFarlane) in which a depressed new mother, her people-phobic neighbour, and a fairy godmother with a malfunctioning wand, somehow forge a 21st century St Andrew’s Night family… All four short pieces gleam with talent, and are brilliantly delivered… it’s thrilling to think what they might produce, given the support they clearly deserve”

– Joyce Macmillan, The Scotsman ****

Director

Andrea is currently directing PARKIES – camp capers and dastardly deeds in a Utah National Park. PARKIES is an international collaboration with artists from Utah, Orlando, Scotland and England premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe 2026 at the Space UK.

Previous work at the Edinburgh Fringe includes Chekhov’s Smoking is Bad For You for Theatre Alba, which attracted a coveted comic strip review – see below. Other work includes directing a five strong cast in Butterflies and Benefits at the Traverse Theatre:

“Butterflies & Benefits, which McKenzie also directs, is a gritty portrayal of the lives of four working class Edinburgh teenagers over the last two years of the 20th Century, who are first seen energetically flinging themselves around the dance floor to the heavy beat of a typical 90s club… Butterflies & Benefits is a powerful, emotional illustration of many of the issues facing young people at the end of the 1990s – some might argue that these issues became even worse over subsequent years. It is well written, providing nuance to the lives of the characters.”

– Allan Wilson, All Edinburgh Theatre ****

Other directing work includes Citadel Arts Group youth theatre productions of Leith Witch Academy and Aye or No, both of which she wrote, the latter described as a ‘must see’ by the Evening News, and a bold interpretation of Blood Brothers in the Leith Festival, which was a hit with audiences and critics alike:

“The reason for their success can be put down to two things – great casting and surefooted, imaginative direction… That the actors were able to give such excellent performances is all the more remarkable given the limitations of set, budget and space available to them and all credit goes to director Andrea McKenzie for creating a free-flowing, innovative and imaginative production.”

– Edinburgh Evening News

Singer

As a graduate of Girls Rock School Edinburgh, Andrea has fronted several rock bands that have raised the roof and smashed glass ceilings across Scotland. She also brings the rock style into her new musical Being Normal which she wrote the book and lyrics for.

Ever versatile, she also loves traditional Scottish music and has performed the works of Hamish Henderson at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Theatre Objektiv’s On The Radical Road.

Band images © P&K Beards