Joanna Wan-Ying Chan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Tack Ching Girls' Secondary School
- Chung Chi College
- Teachers College, Columbia University (M.A., M.Ed., Ed.D.)
Joanna Wan-Ying Chan M. M. | |
|---|---|
陳尹瑩 | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | January 1, 1939 Hong Kong |
| Nationality | Chinese American |
| Education |
|
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Christianity |
| Denomination | Roman Catholicism |
| Institute | Maryknoll Sisters |
Joanna Wang-Ying Chan (陳尹瑩; born 1939) is a Chinese-American Roman Catholic religious sister and a playwright, director, and visual artist.
Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1939, and was raised in Guangzhou, China.[1][2] She and members of her family converted to Roman Catholicism in 1955, when she was 16.[3] She returned to Hong Kong for education, attending Tack Ching Girls' Secondary School and Chung Chi College, Chinese University, where she majored in mathematics.[4] As part of her education, she trained in graphic design.[2]
She joined the Maryknoll order in 1965.[2] She underwent religious training in the Philippines, and her first assignment was in the United States, teaching seventh-graders in Chicago although she was not yet fluent in English.[3]
In 1969, Chan was appointed the first Director of Youth Services at the Church of the Transfiguration in Chinatown, Manhattan.[2][5] The church's priest-pastor directed Chan to find what the neighborhood needed. Chan felt that Chinatown was largely fragmented, and decided to put on community events to bring the neighborhood together.[2] For Lunar New Year in February 1970, Chan put on the play The Emperor’s Daughter (帝女花), which was well received.[5] The performance was adapted from the full-length opera, with simplified choreography for the amateur performers, marking an approach that Chan would continue to use: audience accessibility over authenticity.[6] The show's cast ranged in age and background, including some Puerto Rican and Itaian performers.[6] The show's success led Chan to co-found the Four Seas Players in September 1970.[5][6] As an artistic director of the Four Seas Players, Chan curated the repertory to include both well-known Western plays and traditional and contemporary Chinese works.[5] The group's first production, for Lunar New Year in 1971, was an adaptation of The Tale of the Romantic Fan, set in late Ming China rather than 18th-century Italy.[6]
Chan pursued further education at Teachers College, Columbia University, earning an M.A. (1971), M.Ed. (1974) and Ed.D. (1977).[4] Her 1977 dissertation was titled "The Four Seas Players: Towards an Alternative Form of Chinese Theatre; A Case Study of a Community Theatre in Chinatown, New York City".[6]
In 1975, she began writing her own plays.[2] She began staging plays across the country after 1980.[2] In the 1980s, she was Artist Director of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre. In total, she was involved with the theatre for 25 years, also serving as a guest director and playwright.[5]
Chan was a columnist for the Hong Kong newspaper New Evening Post from 1986 to 1997.[4]
In 1994, she co-founded the Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America in New York.[7]
Beginning in the 2000s, she worked with the Sing Sing Rehabilitation Through Arts program in Westchester, New York as a guest playwright and director.[5]