Guest Artist Spotlight: Aaron Jan
As we draw closer to our end-of-year shows featuring the Fourth Year Acting Class, we’re delighted to be shining the spotlight on all the magnificent guest artists who are making it all happen. Check out our last article on Logan Cracknell!
Photo by Graham Isador
A New Black Poet (workshop)
photo by Anoosha Kargarfard
Produced by Outside the March's Forward March Initiative
Written by Jordan Laffrenier, Directed by Aaron Jan, Set and Lighting Design by Echo Zhou
Aaron Jan (he/him) is a Hamilton-born playwright, director, dramaturg. and educator. He has worked as a creator with a number of companies across the GTA, and now joins the School of Performance as the director for Hookman.
[I'm consistently] fascinated by BIPOC villain-protagonists - racialized people who aren't paragons… White people get to be complicated. Why can’t asian people have that?
Aaron is interested in heroes who make mistakes, yet the audience is still compelled to empathize with them. “I’m drawn to narratives where people make selfish decisions, and the audience is left with the moral quandary of not agreeing with the character while also feeling for them. The most interesting theatre is when someone you believe in betrays you, and you believe in their betrayal.”
“Also,” Aaron adds, “every single show I work on has a character vomiting. An artistic director once told me that I was the only one who found this funny.”
When reflecting about his goals as a director and educator, Aaron pointed out “it’s important to mention that I had a bad time in theatre school. My entire process now is based on what I experienced then. I felt that I never had any agency, so I'm hoping that this process teaches the students that their own ideas, impulses and creative urges not only make the work better, but are critical to their trajectory as artists. I want my students to feel empowered in my rehearsal room, to challenge the text and me in our search for truth and story, so that the show is filled with them not as empty vessels, but driven by their artistry.”
“The future of theatre, to me, is for makers. Not for the people who sit and wait. It’s for the people who resist systems, create new systems, create uncomfortable situations for audiences to figure it out. It’s based on new work, new ideas, radical reinterpretations of text. It’s about creating containers for audiences to question their world, and create a new world.”
photo by Lyon Smith for THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS
Produced by Theatre Erindale , Written by Carlo Goldoni, Directed by Aaron Jan, Set Designed by Sarah Scroggie, Costumes Designed by Michelle Vanderheyden, Lighting Designed by Mikey Slater
When asked if he had any advice for emerging artists and upcoming graduates, Aaron emphasized, “get amazing at writing grants! The better you get, the more you can realize your own projects.” Aaron has won over thirty grants, and recently finished leading a grant writing workshop at Tarragon Theatre (external link) . “I know for myself, I only started getting hired in the last two years. I was freelancing for 9 years. I built my own projects, and got grants to pay myself.”
Aaron also encourages graduates to take charge of their own career. “Don’t wait for the call, do it yourself. Advocate for yourself in the room. Don’t work with people who make you feel like you can’t be yourself. Run with people who excite you, and are excited by you (these people may not be the people who you think or are told you should work with). Be kind. Support work that you love. Be better than what was done to you.”
“Theatre and the process can be fun… theatre can embrace genres like horror,” which is how he classifies Hookman, “romantic comedy, farce and science fiction, while still having a level of real honesty and stakes. Theatre can be whatever we dream it to be, as long as it's honest.”