Zeynep KANKONDE

Eskişehir, the conservatory, and the microphone

Kankonde was born on 3 March 1980 in Eskişehir and trained in the city she came from, graduating in 2001 from the theatre department of Anadolu University's State Conservatory. The route out of drama school ran through teaching rather than straight into television: she has worked as an instructor at the Müjdat Gezen Art Centre and at Ekol Drama, and still describes drama teaching as part of the job rather than something she left behind.

Before the face was familiar, the voice was. Her credited voice work on Turkish series includes Kayıp Şehir in 2012, Güneşi Beklerken in 2013 and Şeref Meselesi in 2014, alongside commercial work. Dubbing and voiceover paid for the early years and left a mark on the stage work — a performer who plays comedy off rhythm and vocal placement rather than visual business.

The television decade

The on-camera run that made her recognisable across Turkey is unusually consistent in shape: long episode counts, comic registers, women at the centre of noisy families. She played Şehriban in Ulan İstanbul across 39 episodes in 2014 and 2015, then Ayşe Maksut in Yeni Gelin for 63 episodes between 2017 and 2018 — the longest single stretch of her screen career to date. Pembe Mollaoğlu in Kuzey Yıldızı İlk Aşk followed for 40 episodes in 2019 and 2020, and Menekşe Erten in Aşk Mantık İntikam for 42 episodes across 2021 and 2022.

Features filled the gaps between series blocks. She appeared as Saliha in Senden Bana Kalan in 2015, then in three 2016 comedies — Bir Baba Hindu, Dedemin Fişi and Görümce — and in Aybüke: Öğretmen Oldum Ben in 2023. The cumulative effect is a performer the audience arrives already knowing, which matters a great deal to the touring model she now works in, where a play is sold in a provincial culture centre on the strength of three names on a poster.

The stage work, and two awards for comedy

Her theatre credits are fewer than her screen ones but they are where the prizes are. In 2016 she was in Bütün Kadınların Kafası Karışıktır for Aysa Prodüksiyon Tiyatrosu, and that same year took the comedy actress award at the 16th Direklerarası Theatre Awards. In 2023 she was in Ödenmeyecek, Ödemiyoruz!, the Dario Fo farce, and won comedy actress of the year at the 9th Ekin Yazın Dostları Theatre Awards.

In 2025 she appeared in Güneşin Oğlu at Zorlu PSM in Istanbul. Two awards in seven years, both specifically for comedy, is the clearest external read on what directors cast her for: she is hired to carry the laugh in a serious play rather than to be funny in a funny one.

Aziz Nesin in a damp basement: the 2026 production that defined the year

Hadi Öldürsene Canikom opened on 26 March 2026 at Ortaoyuncular Ses Tiyatrosu in Beyoğlu, produced by Vigor Kültür Sanat and directed by Barış Dinçel, who also designed the set. Kankonde is one of three performers, alongside Günay Karacaoğlu and Bülent Alkış, in Nesin's story of two women — Diha and Siyen — scraping by in the damp basement flat of an old apartment block, whose monotony is broken by something they hear on the radio and who are promptly thrown back into their own memories. Osman Aktan lit it, Başak Özdoğan designed the costumes and Çiğdem Erken wrote the music.

Dinçel's reading pushed the piece away from sentiment. He has pointed out that he was roughly the same age Nesin was when the play was written, around 55, and framed the characters as emotionally immature rather than merely old. Kankonde has described the company's approach as looking at modern isolation from a rational perspective instead of leaning on pathos, and insisted on the darkness underneath the comedy.

It worked commercially. Between the March premiere and the summer break the production played 18 cities, including Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir and Eskişehir, and closed its first season on 20 June 2026 at the Girne Amphitheatre as part of the 22nd Cyprus Theatre Festival — a sold-out house and a long standing ovation. Kankonde's own summary of the run afterwards was that every performance played to a full house and the company hit almost no organisational or technical trouble on the road. Alkış noted that audiences were leaving with a smile; Karacaoğlu credited the exchange with the house for lifting the show. The production returned for the new season rather than closing there.

The whodunit with a phone vote

The second strand of her current year is Karanlıkta Kumpas, an interactive detective comedy written by Ali Erkan Ersezer and directed by Ebru Kara, with set and costumes by Candan Günay, lighting by Kemal Yiğitcan and music by Kemal Alpan, produced by Sanart. It opened at 9pm on Friday 28 August 2026 at the Ulaş Bayam Open-Air Theatre as part of the Aliağa Art Days in İzmir province. The draw for the Turkish press was Şafak Sezer returning to a theatre stage after a twenty-year absence; Aliağa's mayor Serkan Acar thanked the company from the stage for giving the town the premiere.

The mechanism is the point. An investment expert named Evren is stabbed during his sixtieth birthday party at an isolated luxury house cut off by a snowstorm; the lights go out, and the audience is enlisted by Commissioner Aslan to question the suspects directly, weigh the clues and then vote on their phones for the killer before the curtain comes down. Kankonde is one of six suspects in an eight-strong cast that also includes Şebnem Özinal, Özgür Özgülgün, Burak Alkaş, Deniz Oral, Ömür Arpacı and Bensu Begoviç. Hürriyet covered the production on 3 October 2026 after a performance at Trump Sahne in Istanbul.

Where things stand, October 2026

As of late October 2026 both productions are selling in parallel, which is the unusual fact about her standing right now: the ticketing listings carry 22 dates under her name running from 27 October 2026 through to 29 January 2027, split between the two shows and spread across Şanlıurfa, Adana, İzmir, Antalya, Ordu, Sinop, Denizli, Konya, Istanbul, Burdur, Balıkesir, Çanakkale and Bursa. The diaries overlap — 27 October, 8 November and 9 November each carry one date for each production in different cities — so the two tours are being routed simultaneously rather than in sequence.

Prices give a sense of the market she is playing to. Listed entry prices run from ₺715 for Karanlıkta Kumpas at the Mehmet Akif İnan conference hall in Şanlıurfa on 27 October up to ₺1,400 for Hadi Öldürsene Canikom at the Ordu culture centre on 8 November and at BAOB Sahne in Bursa on 29 January 2027. The pattern is the standard Turkish provincial touring circuit: municipal culture centres, one night each, with a handful of Istanbul and İzmir returns — the Leyla Gencer Opera and Art Centre on 2 December, the Bostanlı Karşıyaka stage on 3 November and again on 16 December.