2022 started off with the premier of Ins Choi’s Casting, a hilarious and biting audioplay about casting for TV, commissioned and produced by Factory Theatre and directed by myself, featuring Laura Condlln, Shawn Ahmed and Janet Porter with sound design by Mikael Bensimon.
I then jumped into rehearsal at York University, where I directed the tremendous performers of the fourth year BFA Acting students in a production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Everybody .
The cast of Everybody
As soon as Everybody opened, I was overjoyed to finally finish working on Chloé Hung’s Three Women of Swatow at Tarragon Theatre. Thrice delayed by the pandemic, it was a pleasure to reconnect with performers Carolyn Fe, Diana Luong and Chantria Tram, and work with stage manager extraordinaire Daniel Oulton. And a thrill to finally see and hear the work of designers Jareth Li, Deanna Choi, and Shannon Lea Doyle. Our run was incredibly well received and the show was extended for additional performances both live and streaming online.
Chantria Tram, Carolyn Fe and Diana Luong in Everybody. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann
Three Women of Swatow has since garnered four Dora Nominations including Outstanding New Play for Chloé, Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role for Carolyn, Outstanding Costume Design for Shannon, and Outstanding Direction for myself!
In the spring of this year Love et Lajoie, a new series for Franco-Ontarian youth, hit the airwaves on TFO. I play a French-speaking anglophone inventor on the show - I’m constantly creating new artificial-intelligences and fumbling up my french grammar. You can see the whole season now.
This summer I took a little time off (excepting a brief trip to St. Catherines to teach with Suitcase-In-Point’s Electric Innovations program). I shot a few TV commercials, got to speak to some incoming Loran scholars, and otherwise took some time to prepare for the next adventure - a move to St. John’s Newfoundland, where I am currently a student in Memorial University’s MBA in Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. We’re two weeks into the program now and I am loving it. The coursework is tough but we’re also doing a lot of experiential learning and connecting with organizations that are changing the world for the better. My classmates are excellent and come from all sorts of professional backgrounds. I’m not quite sure where this path is leading, but I’m game for the adventure.
On a field trip to Petty Harbour to visit the social enterprise Fishing for Success