Charmaine Bingwa


Charmaine Bingwa is a Zimbabwean / Australian actress, writer and director who won the 2018 Heath Ledger Scholarship award.

Early life and acting career

Bingwa was born in Perth, Western Australia. She began her career as a singer, but when completing her Bachelor of Music at university, she took acting as one of her final electives and said “something suddenly clicked inside of her.” She completed the acting course in addition to her music degree and signed with an acting agent soon after graduating. She won critical acclaim in the stage role starring as Mrs. Muller, which she received a Sydney Theatre Awards nomination. In 2018, she won the Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance Scholarship to study at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York and then won the Heath Ledger Scholarship – becoming the first woman of colour and openly gay recipient. Bingwa also starred, wrote, produced and co-directed the series Little Sista, which won the LGBT Toronto Film Festival.

Awards