Yıldız Kenter

Ayşe Yıldız Kenter (11 October 1928 – 17 November 2019) was a Turkish actress and lecturer. Kenter was also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Kenter graduated from Ankara State Conservatory. She worked for eleven years at the Ankara State Theatre. She obtained a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and went to the United States, where she attended American Theatre Wing, Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre and Actors Studio to study advanced drama education. After returning home, she was appointed instructor at the Ankara State Conservatory. On 1959, she resigned from her post at the State Theatre.

After working one year with Muhsin Ertuğrul, she co-founded the "Kent Theatre Company" with her brother Müşfik Kenter and husband Şükran Güngör. In later years, she conducted studies on "Changing Education Methods" and "Acting Methods" in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

The construction of the Kenter Theatre building in Istanbul was completed in 1968. She played in English and Turkish language in the Soviet Union, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, Yugoslavia and Cyprus.

She staged and played more than hundred works of foreign playwrights such as Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht, Ionesco, Pinter, Albee, Tennessee Williams, Alan Ayckbourn, Arthur Miller, Brian Friel, Neil Simon, Athol Fugard, Sergei Kokovkin and also of Turkish dramatists like Melih Cevdet Anday, Necati Cumalı, Güner Sümer, Adalet Ağaoğlu, Zeki Özturanlı, Güngör Dilmen,…