{{Short description|Canadian actor}} '''Jovanni Sy''' is a Canadian actor, playwright and theatre director.<ref name=nothof>Anne Nothof, [https://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Sy%2C%20Jovanni "Sy, Jovanni"]. ''Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia'', October 26, 2025.</ref>
==Background== Of Chinese Filipino descent, he was born in Manila and grew up in Toronto, Ontario after emigrating to Canada with his family in childhood.<ref name=gateway>"Jovanni Sy, Gateway Theatre's new creative boss, wants to boost theatre experience". ''The Review'', May 4, 2012.</ref> He studied engineering at the University of Toronto, while active in community theatre as a hobby, but after not being satisfied in his early engineering career he left the profession and decided to pursue acting professionally.<ref name=nothof/>
==Acting career== He began his career as an actor in the 1990s,<ref>Tamara Bernstein, "The Anxiety of Immortality: An installation performance opera". ''The Globe and Mail'', June 15, 1995.</ref> principally in stage roles but also in film and television including a regular role as Dr. Donald Chen in the medical drama ''Side Effects'',<ref>Bonnie Malleck, "Inside Side Effects: Time the best healer for highly-touted CBC medical drama". ''Waterloo Region Record'', October 14, 1994.</ref> and an episode of the 2003 short-run drama anthology series ''The Atwood Stories''.
==Playwriting and theatre direction== He subsequently joined Factory Theatre's Playwrights Lab in 2001, spending three years with the program before joining Tapestry Opera as playwright-in-residence in 2005.<ref name=nothof/> He served as artistic director of Toronto's Cahoots Theatre from 2004 to 2009,<ref name=nothof/> and as playwright-in-residence at the Stratford Festival in 2010.<ref name=nothof/> During his time with Cahoots, he premiered his debut play ''The Five Vengeances''.<ref>"Humber theatre promises laughs". ''Etobicoke Guardian'', November 17, 2006.</ref>
In 2010 he premiered the play ''A Taste of Empire'', in a production directed by Guillermo Verdecchia.<ref>J. Kelly Nestruck, "Theatre review: A Taste of Empire". ''The Globe and Mail'', July 7, 2010.</ref> The play was a Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee for Best Original Play, Independent Theatre in 2011.<ref>"Gateway Theatre announces new artistic director". ''The Review'', February 1, 2012.</ref>
In 2012 he was named artistic director of Gateway Theatre in Vancouver,<ref name=gateway/> remaining with the company until 2019.<ref name=nothof/> During this time he premiered the play ''Nine Dragons'' in 2018, in a staging co-produced by Gateway, Vertigo Theatre and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre.<ref>Shawn Conner, "Hard-Boiled Noir Hits The Stage; Nine Dragons, set in 1920s-era Hong Kong, explores mysteries of murder and identity". ''Vancouver Sun'', April 12, 2018.</ref> The play won various awards including a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for Outstanding Original Script,<ref>Stuart Derdeyn, "Arts Club Theatre Company rocks the Jessies with seven awards". ''Vancouver Sun'', July 17, 2018.</ref> and a Winnipeg Theatre Award for Outstanding New Work.<ref>Randall King, "Winnipeg Theatre Award nominees announced". ''Winnipeg Free Press'', October 1, 2018.</ref>
Following his time with Gateway Theatre, Sy opted to return to school to pursue an MFA in theatre at the University of Calgary, graduating in 2023.<ref name=nothof/> During this time, ''The Five Vengeances'' received a new staging in Vancouver by the Affair of Honor theatre company.<ref>Shawn Conner, "In Five Vengeances, Affair of Honor brings 1970s kung fu movie moves to the stage". ''The Province'', September 22, 2022.</ref>
''Salesman in China'', a play he cowrote with his wife Leanna Brodie about Arthur Miller's 1983 production of ''Death of a Salesman'' in China, premiered at Stratford in 2024.<ref>[https://www.cbc.ca/arts/q/salesman-in-china-revisits-arthur-miller-s-chinese-staging-of-death-of-a-salesman-1.7303490 "Salesman in China revisits Arthur Miller's Chinese staging of Death of a Salesman"]. ''Q'', August 26, 2024.</ref>
''The Tao of the World'', a contemporary Asian Canadian adaptation of William Congreve's 1700 play ''The Way of the World'' which was written as his master's thesis play, is slated to receive its first professional staging at Stratford in 2026.<ref>Aisling Murphy, [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/article-stratford-festival-2026-antoni-cimolino/ "Stratford Festival unveils 2026 season, including a remount of Something Rotten!"]. ''The Globe and Mail'', August 12, 2025.</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sy, Jovanni}} Category:20th-century Canadian male actors Category:21st-century Canadian male actors Category:21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Category:21st-century Canadian male writers Category:Canadian male dramatists and playwrights Category:Canadian male film actors Category:Canadian male stage actors Category:Canadian male television actors Category:Canadian theatre directors Category:Canadian male actors of Chinese descent Category:Canadian writers of Asian descent Category:Filipino emigrants to Canada Category:University of Calgary alumni Category:University of Toronto alumni Category:Male actors from Toronto Category:Writers from Toronto Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)