It all may have started when she skipped kindergarten... after school, Kwana accompanied her mother to dance classes, and entertained herelf (and the class!) to the instructor's dismay by singing nonsense songs and making funny faces. She soon followed in her mother's footsteps (pun intended!) and began studying dance.
Kwana performed in school and local theatre productions in Cincinnati, and later in Philadelphia, Chicago and Cleveland.While an undergraduate at Vassar College, Kwana attended the prestigious British American Dramatic Academy in London for a semester, and was nominated for an Irene Ryan Acting Award for her role as the Storyteller in THE WHEEL.
Kwana further honed her skills in graduate school at Harvard's Moscow Arts/American Repertory Theatre program where she appeared on the mainstage as a deranged figure from Parsifal in Susan Sontag's World Premeiere of ALICE IN BED, and as a corseted red haired Russian Knife Thrower in a stage adaptation of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. A first year performance led to the plum role of Helena in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. Kwana returned to CSC to play Juliet in ROMEO AND JULIET opposite Jason Butler Harner, and Miranda opposite Will Lyman's Prospero in THE TEMPEST.
After graduating from Harvard, Kwana booked numerous regional gigs, as well as working in NYC with Mabou Mines' Ruth Maleczech and the critically acclaimed Target Margin Theatre.
Kwana then decided to try the West Coast, where she has had the chance to add to her "bag" of dialects, most notably East Indian for AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS at The Colony Theatre; Japanese for VALIANT at the Greenway Court; and Vietnamese for WALKIN' THRU THE FIRE at The Hayworth Theatre starring opposite TRACERS' playwright, John Di Fusco, and French, Tunisian, and multiple others in STRING OF PEARLS directed by O'Neil Theatre alum, Karen Carpenter.
She then had the pleasure of working with Sharon Washington at Denver Center in THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, opposite television's Jane the Virgin star, Ivonne Coll, in SONIA FLEW, and as the wife to Scandal's Jon Tenney in the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize nominee Rajiv Joseph's MR. WOLF.
She is based in LA and is a proud member of the Antaeus Theatre Company, where she is also on the board.