Derek Chan

Age: 29
Ethnicity: Chinese (Hong Kong)
Occupation and/or Company: Co-artistic Director at rice & beans theatre
Years of experience: Company formed in 2010

Personal & professional philosophy:
rice & beans theatre was founded by Pedro Chamale and Derek Chan. We are dedicated to defining the nature and function of a contemporary theatre challenging the role of story and narrative. rice & beans theatre focuses on creating, incubating and producing original performances. A worthy theatre should be accessible, honest, uncompromising and personal.

Upcoming performances/ project:
Starstuff: Per Aspera Ad Astra; and Small Town Hoser Spic at the Historic Cultch Theatre- part of the Vancouver Fringe this year (Sept 10-20).
Pedro (Co-artistic Director of rice & beans) and I are planning to create a mobile, site-specific theatre performance piece, in which we invite the audience to go on a white-van road trip with us for a few hours, to Chilliwack or up at Deep Cove, somewhere that is a little bit unfamiliar, but still safe for the audience. The show will be exploring topics such as missing children and abduction, and the loss of childhood innocence.

What is the highlight of your work?
Winning the 2015 Fringe New Play Prize was a great morale boost for me as a playwright, and has put the company’s work on people’s radars. Loomings; or The Whale, a personal adaptation of Moby Dick in the form of a ‘powerhouse fantasia’ received warm reviews. The show had a very successful run at Pandora’s Box Studios last summer.

Future goals:
With rice & beans theatre, I plan to keep finding interesting stories to tell and collaborating with talented artists. Hopefully through the work I do, I am doing my part in keeping the theatre scene in Vancouver sustainable, fresh, inclusive, exciting and relevant.