Kaili Y. Turner is a Black, Indigenous (enrolled member of Nipmuc Nation) comedian, actress, writer, producer, puppeteer and single mother to two boys. Raised between Boston and Mashpee, MA (Indian Country). She’s a lover of fried chicken and fry bread.

Her motto, “a spoonful of laughter helps the message go down.”

.Kaili began writing to provide the Afro-Indigenous representation she longed for growing up. She writes edgy, funny narratives with strong themes of independent women having it all and redefining “all.” She highlights marginalized and under-voiced communities and opens her audiences up with laughter to receive her messages. Kaili enjoys sharing parts of her unique experiences growing up in three worlds: Black, Native and American both on, and off the rez. She examines tradition versus the non-traditional in all aspects of her cultural identity, and uses her findings to subvert our ideas of what it is to be Afro-Indigenous.

A joke machine and an idea machine, she’s written various sketches, plays, and podcast episodes to name a few. She’s performed with Grown Ass Women (first all-female Maude team at Upright Citizens Brigade, NY). A comedy nerd, Kaili took the risk and moved her family to Chicago, as one of four selected, as an inaugural SNL/Second City scholarship recipient. Kaili finished the program and performed to a sold-out show, attended by SNL executives. Shortly after, she branded herself the “Comedy Goddess” and was asked by an executive producer of the American Reality Television Awards, to write the host monologue for Vivica A. Fox. The show went on to win 3 telly awards. Kaili continued to hone her writing skills in the Native American Tv Writers lab (2022), which enabled her to work her craft, and expand her network of Native Americans in the industry, and is a recent graduate of the Collective Five Showrunners program (2023).

Additionally, Turner has written for sketch groups To Karen, with Love (Brooklyn based sketch group, New Jersey CIty Comedy Festival Best Sketch group winners 2020), is a Lucille Lortel nominated company cast member, in the New York Times, Critic Pick’s play “The Nosebleed” at Lincoln Center, NYC, Woolly Mammoth, D.C, RedCat, LA, The Walker, MN, and OH and will be gearing up for the Japan leg this coming November, and recently played Mae Jemison and Jane Hart in the world premiere of S P A C E by LM Feldman at Central Sq theatre. Kaili voices Onika the puppet and her short sketch Black Santa was selected by the Portland Comedy Film Festival, and the New York Comedy Shorts Film Festival, and reminder she does it all with two kids and a dog in tow.