Ravi Jain is an award winning actor, director, producer and educator. As an actor, he worked as a core member of Josh Fox’s New York-based International WOW Company (2000-2003) followed by a one-year apprenticeship at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC. His Toronto acting credits include shows that explore his relationship with his family and his ethnic identity including Brimful of Asha (awarded the Urjo Kareda Residency Grant at the Tarragon Theatre, in development) and We Eat With Our Hands (2009, Dishoom! Festival); at the Toronto Festival of Clowns, TOOLS (2008) and SPENT (2010 Dora Award for best performance in Featured Role); as well as a literary adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven (2009, Luminato New Waves Festival). With Aluna Theatre Nohayquiensepa (2009, Summerworks Toronto) and Defenestration (2008) in Bogata, Columbia. Ravi has also created and performed in festivals throughout Europe, including the Dublin Fringe and the Certaldo festival in Italy.
As a director and educator, Ravi has worked on five continents and his current work reflects his interest in the international traffic of cultural production. His New York directing credits focused on reinterpretations of classical texts including Antigone(2001), Hamlet (2002) and Othello (2003). His Toronto directorial debut was the well-received The Prince Hamlet (2007), followed by a one-night performance of recorded narratives from soldiers in Iraq called Winter Soldiers (2008), a cabaret called The Raunchy Review (2008). Ravi was assistant director to Daniel Brooks’ Hardsell (2009), Richard Rose for Courageous (Dora Award for Best New Play) and most recently was assistant director to Jennifer Tarver on the new Geroge F. Walker musical King of Thieves at the Stratford Festival. He has also worked on community-based projects such as the Luminato/Manifesto collaboration Streetscape: Living Space (2008) as well as staged readings Sound Plays (2008) and Sarena Parmar’s Inheritance (2009, Dishoom!). Ravi directed Greenland for Summerworks 2009, which was awarded the two top prizes of the festival: The NOW Audience Choice Award and Best Production of the Festival. Ravi Jain’s company, Why Not Theatre, earned a Spotlight Award from Summerworks 2008 for I’m So Close…, which was developed in residency at the Theatre Centre, and premiered in Toronto and Vancouver in 2010.
Ravi is a gifted teacher and facilitator and has taught internationally leading workshops and cultural exchanges through theatre. He has worked in Singapore, Brazil, Kenya, Italy, Canada and the US. Locally, he is involved in many community based organizing events across the city and works with Schools Without Borders, Manifesto and Beautiful City Alliance. He is actively engaged and an advocate for youth arts and artists effecting positive change in their communities. He is a member of the producing team of Wrecking Ball and a steering committee member of Arts Vote, and the originator and current facilitator of the young company at the Canadian Stage Company.
A graduate of the 2-year program at Ecole Jacques Lecoq his training includes Commedia dell’arte in Italy, Noh/Kabuki Sweden, as well as with Ann Bogart and the SITI Company, various members of Complicite and with Ariane Mnouchkine and Theatre du Soleil in Paris.
Recent Awards:
The Ontario Arts Council John Hirsch award for emerging director (nomination)
Ken Macdougall Award for Emerging Director, Harold Awards
Toronto Arts Foundation RBC emerging Artist (Finalist)
Dora Award for best Performance in a Featured Role for SPENT
Urjo Kareda Artist in Residence at Tarragon Theatre 2009-10
Selected as 1 of the Top 10 people to watch by Toronto Star for 2010