Jovanni Sy is a playwright, director, educator, and actor based in Montreal. He is the former Artistic Director of Gateway Theatre in Vancouver and Cahoots Theatre in Toronto.
Jovanni’s latest play, Salesman in China (co-written with Leanna Brodie) premiered at the Stratford Festival in August 2024 to great acclaim and was then remounted at the National Arts Centre in January 2025. Salesman in China received the 2024 Quebec Writers' Federation Prize for Playwriting.
Jovanni's play Nine Dragons, a detective story set in 1920s colonial Hong Kong, premiered at Vertigo Theatre in Calgary in 2017 and subsequently transferred to Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Gateway Theatre. Nine Dragons won the Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding New Play.
In 2010, Cahoots premiered his solo piece A Taste of Empire which was nominated for two Dora Awards including Outstanding New Play. Jovanni directed a Cantonese version of A Taste of Empire titled 食盡天下, translated and performed by Derek Chan (2018 Dora nomination). A Taste of Empire was also translated into Tagalog as Lasa Ng Imperyo by Carmela Sison.
Other produced works include The Five Vengeances, a comic kung-fu adapation of The Revengers Tragedy, and the libretti to the chamber operas Haiku Moments and The Cellar Door.
Jovanni has several projects in development including his play The Tao of the World (2022 Playwrights Guild of Canada Comedy Award); Kowloon Bay (2023 PGC Drama Award), a prequel to Nine Dragons; and the farce Fan Tan Alley, a Silver Commission from Vancouver's Arts Club Theatre.
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