Pooja Mohanraj

Pooja Mohanraj is a film and theatre actor from Kerala, India.

She graduated from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi with a degree in Economics Honours and holds a Masters in Theatre Arts from School of Drama and Fine Arts, University of Calicut. She has a Professional Diploma in Intercultural Theatre (Acting) from Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI), Singapore (a three year, full-time acting programme). At ITI, she trained in Eastern Traditional forms and Contemporary Western Techniques.

Pooja Mohanraj was born in Pondicherry, India, the daughter of Usha Mohanraj and K Mohanraj, a mechanical engineer. Her only sister, Kavitha Nambiar, is settled in Bexleyheath, Kent UK with her husband, Nitin Radhakrishnan, and two sons. Her initial phase of schooling was in Pondicherry and Muscat, after which her family moved to Kerala. She attended Bhavan's Adarsha Vidyalaya, Ernakulam. Her initiation to theatre happened when her mother took her to a children's theatre class by Prof. Chandradasan's theatre group, Lokadharmi, at the age of 10. She performed extensively since her childhood at many prestigious Indian and International festivals.

Pooja has worked with acclaimed directors like Aarne Neeme, Sankar Venkateswaran, Chandradasan, Sasidharan Naduvil, etc. Her major productions include Egle and Cleopatra (a solo play), When We Dead Awaken and Balcony among others. Her productions were staged in prestigious festivals like Bharat Rang Mahotsav, International Theatre Festival of Kerala, Ekaharya Theatre Festival, META festival, the Old World Theatre Festival, Surya Festival, etc. She directed her first play for The Collegiate Theatre Festival for New- Writing in Germany by Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller, New Delhi.She was the recipient of the Scholarship of Young Artistes of Ministry of Culture, Government of India for training in the field of theatre. Her solo "Straitjacket" was performed at the Singapore Writers' Festival 2018.

Apart from being a performer, Pooja has worked in organising several editions of International Theatre Festival of Kerala in varied capacities. She also facilitates theatre-in-education programmes in schools and colleges in Kerala. She also developed and runs training modules thoroughly adapted to the virtual space called 'Attune' for actors and non-actors with an interest in all types of performance.

Pooja continues her work in theatre as an actor, trainer, curator, performance maker and arts manager, alongside her career in films which started in 2019 with the Malayalam movie, One.