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Black and white photo of Derek Kwan, sitting sideways in a high canvas chair with his knees draped over on of the arms of the chair. His hands clasp one knee and his head is bent back laughing.
Photo by Dahlia Katz 2023

CURRENT AND RECENT PROJECTS:

A NEW MOON CELEBRATION
February 1, 2025 7:30pm
London Symphonia
Metropolitan United, 468 Wellington Street, London, Ontario

Celebrate Lunar New Year with a beautiful mix of old and new.

We are proud to present an extravagantly colourful collection of stories and music that evoke the Moon, the stars, and the way they shine upon the cycles of our lives. Bringing their unique gifts to these Lunar New Year festivities are the sparkling artistry of Lina Cao on guzheng, the luminous brilliance of violinist Scott St. John, the rising stars of London Youth Symphony and the extraordinary musicians of London Symphonia.

SALESMAN IN CHINA
August 3 – October 26, 2024 | OPENS August 23
Stratford Festival

January 16 –  25, 2024 | OPENS January 17
National Arts Centre

*Winner of 2024 Quebec Writers’ Federation Prize for Playwriting*

In 1983, American playwright Arthur Miller travelled to China to direct a production of his classic play, Death of a Salesman. Working with the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, Miller and his collaborators struggled to bridge the gap between languages, cultures and national identities with local audiences having been long shut off from the West. Salesman in China retells this daring act of cultural cross-pollination on stage.

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
May 3 – October 25, 2025 | OPENS May 29
Avon Theatre, Stratford Festival

Lawrence Jameson is no stranger to the high life—he’s lived it for years by separating lonely rich ladies from their fortunes in a swanky Riviera town. When he and his chief competitor in the con business, Freddy Benson, make a bet to swindle an heiress out of $50,000, the professional scoundrels soon discover they may not always be the smartest people in the room. Based on the hit 1988 film, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the musical comedy earned 10 Tony Awards for its hilarious hijinks and frivolity—beautifully reminiscent of an earlier age.

ANNIE
April 19 – November 2, 2025 | OPENS May 27
Festival Theatre, Stratford Festival

Annie has reigned as one of the world’s most beloved family musicals since its original six-year Broadway run. Annie Bennett is the iconic mop-topped orphan who knows the sun will come out tomorrow for her, no matter how dark it gets today. (Even if “today” is under the domain of Miss Hannigan, the caretaker of the orphanage and an over-the-top misopedist.) When Annie and her scrappy dog, Sandy, are taken in by the secretary of the billionaire Daddy Warbucks, the girl’s lifelong search to find her birth parents sets off a chain of wacky, heartwarming adventures.

KNIVES, SEASONING, AND A DASH OF LOVE
Audiobook

In this spicy workplace romance, a hotheaded celebrity chef finds himself drawn to his inexperienced new hire. But when her bubbly attitude collides with his sharp edges, can they handle the heat, or will their love be a recipe for disaster?

Alexander Chen is one of the most talented chefs to ever grace the culinary world of French haute cuisine. He rules his kitchen with an iron fist and fiery temper, so it’s no secret that if you can’t handle the heat, he’ll gladly toss you out with the trash. As one of the first Chinese-American chefs to claw his way to the top, he has a lot to prove and a massive chip on his shoulder.

But he wasn’t always like this. Eden Monroe, his newly hired sous chef—who may or may not have (definitely) embellished a lot on her resumé to land herself the job—knew him back when he still went by his real name, Shang. He used to be sweet and helpful and definitely not the second coming of the devil himself.

Eden won’t say anything, though, no matter how hot her curiosity burns. Especially if it could cost her this job, which she needs if she has any hope of hiring a private detective to find something she lost long ago.

All she has to do is fly under the radar. It’s just a shame that she and her new boss butt heads more often than they fulfill orders. But what happens when things finally boil over, and they discover the feelings between them are spicier than they ever imagined?

BATSHIT SEVEN
Audiobook

*2024 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Winner*

From Governor General’s Award-nominated author Sheung-King comes a novel about a millennial living through the Hong Kong protests, as he struggles to make sense of modern life and the parts of himself that just won’t gel.

Glen Wu (aka Glue) couldn’t care less about his job. He’s returned to Hong Kong, the city he grew up in, and he’s teaching ESL, just to placate his parents. But he shows up hungover to class, barely stays awake, and prefers to spend his time smoking up until dawn breaks.

As he watches the city he loves fall—the protests, the brutal arrests—life continues around him. So he drinks more, picks more fights with his drug dealer friend, thinks loftier thoughts about the post-colonial condition and Frantz Fanon. The very little he does care about: his sister, who deals with Hong Kong’s demise by getting engaged to a rich immigration consultant; his on-and-off-again relationship with a woman who steals things from him; and memories of someone he once met in Canada….

When the government tightens its grip, language starts to lose all meaning for Glue, and he finds himself pulled into an unsettling venture, ultimately culminating in an act of violence.

Inventive and utterly irresistible, with QR codes woven throughout, Sheung-King’s ingenious novel encapsulates the anxieties and apathies of the millennial experience. Batshit Seven is an ode to a beloved city, an indictment of the cycles of imperialism, and a reminder of the beautiful things left under the hype of commodified living.

On the left: The cover of The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton, with title in large black letters, with an illustration of a bird in the background and water droplets covering the entire surface of the book. On the right: headshot of Thomas Wharton, the author.

THE BOOK OF RAIN
Audiobook

*2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Finalist*

The northern mining town of River Meadows is one of three hotspots in the world producing ghost ore, a new source of energy worth twenty-eight times its weight in gold. It’s also linked with slippages of time and space that gradually render the area uninhabitable. After the town is evacuated, the whole region is cordoned off, the new no-go zone wryly nicknamed “the Park.”

Three intertwined stories flow from the disaster of River Meadows. Alex Hewitt and his sister, Amery, were among the first to be shipped out of the contaminated town. Now an accomplished game designer, Alex has moved on, but his sister has not, making increasingly dangerous break-ins to save animals trapped in the toxic wasteland. When at last she fails to return from a trip inside the fence, Alex flies to River Meadows to search for her, enlisting her friend, Michio Amano, a mathematician who needs to transcend the known laws of physics if he and Alex are to succeed.

BND TV
Talkshow (Bad New Days, digital)

Think Dick Cavett meets Graham Norton with a sploosh of Actor’s Studio 🙂 🎭
The format of each episode is a long-form interview with two physical theatre artists talking shop followed by a performance/interview with a musical guest. We talk a lot about physical performance, clown, play, presence, improvisation, embodied dramaturgy, the virtues of failure, and Episode 2 even features a compassionate critique of Ontario’s current education minister (pace Laura Barrett) 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼
  • Ep 1: Featuring: Kari Pederson, Fiona Sauder, and Kurt Swinghammer
  • Ep 2: Featuring: Rob Feetham, Derek Kwan, and Laura Barrett
  • Ep 3: Featuring: Annie Luján, Ken Hall, and Raha Javanfar
  • Ep 4: Featuring: Seymour Irons, Neena Jayarajan, and Gordon Monahan
Hosted by Adam Paolozza and Greg Oh
Creative Producer Victor Pokinko
Production Design by Allie Marshall
Theme Music by SlowPitchSound
Announcer John Millard
Produced by Archipelago Productions
BND TV Acknowledges the support of the Canada Council For The Arts

CHINATOWN
September 13-17, 2022
City Opera Vancouver

Chinatown is a story of family and neighbourhood, racism and resistance, history and tomorrow. In two acts and two hours it examines six characters, two families, and a chorus of male ghosts, from the building of the CPR through to our own times. It deals with violence and despair, the Head Tax, the Exclusion Act, paper sons, and paper promise.

It is a Western opera, but incorporates Chinese themes, sounds and sensibilities. And it is a love story.

The inspiration for CHINATOWN lies in our history, a great neighbourhood and its people, and its resistance against racism – both historical, and resurgent today.

A recording with the premiere cast was released September 8, 2023 by Leaf Music.

“A striking new opera”- David Olds, Wholenote Magazine

Featured in CBC’s Summer 2023 album guide.

THE STANDARD SING
Audio Play

From the corner of Spadina and Dundas in the heart of Toronto’s Chinatown, two friends, Helen and Justin, find themselves led to an old and abandoned theatre after receiving a cryptic note. Known as The Standard in the early 1920s, during the height of Canada’s Chinese Immigration Act, this venue had a history of renting its space to Cantonese Opera performers. Once inside, Helen and Justin run into the theatre’s mysterious and charismatic caretaker, Mr. Sing, who muses enthusiastically about the theatre’s history of Cantonese Opera performance.

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