Marina Rebecca Chan is a playwright (Dramatists Guild member), performer (actor, singer, dancer and member of Actors’ Equity Association) and producer based in Brooklyn, New York, with a soft spot for musicals and a passion for both traditional and innovative forms. Combining her various arts, she aims to spread joy, dispel stereotypes, advance representation and tell stories that speak to the avant garde nature of our times. She is also a proud Chinese adoptee!
Marina grew up training in dance/choreography, music (classical piano and violin, as well as school orchestra and jazz band), voice (solo and Brooklyn Youth Chorus) and theater, acting in her school’s musicals and performing at various NYC venues. Her favorite childhood performance experiences include Tin-Gal in The Wiz (Packer Collegiate Institute) and dancing in Mark Lamos’ production of Mozart’s Il Re Pastore in Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival!
Marina graduated cum laude from Columbia College, Columbia University, with a Drama & Theatre Arts major and playwriting concentration. Her favorite college extracurriculars include Assistant Art Directing the 122nd Annual Varsity Show and programming classical music at WKCR. During her college years, Marina also interned at Das Films (Santa Monica, LA) and the New York Musical Festival (working directly under Rachel Sussman). Following graduation, Marina interned in the Performing Arts Department at Asia Society (under Rachel Cooper and Rachel Rosado), which led to a year-long project that Marina conceived, organized and produced under the auspices of Asia Society and Barnard College: Asian Americans in Theatre: Art and Activism, a series of panel discussions involving theatre professionals and scholars, examining issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.
During Covid, Marina worked on and acted in 15 Zoom readings and productions, including her own plays Elizabeth’s Wonderland (self-produced, with 20 actors!), Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow (Little & Fierce Theatre Company), and Two Lovers (Rachel Love’s AirPlay). In 2022, she performed in-person again: two plays by Gary Morgenstein, A Black and White Cookie (The Tank) and A Tomato Can't Grow in the Bronx (Chain Theatre), and a developmental staged reading of her play, Asian American Girl, at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. In 2023, Marina performed her Broadway-style solo dance, "Curtain Up," in Ellen Robbins' Alumni Dance Concert at New York Live Arts, and acted in staged readings of Gary Morgenstein's Dancing on Glass, including at the Dramatists Guild. She also attended the British American Drama Academy's Midsummer in Oxford Shakespeare acting program at Oxford University. In Nov 2023, Marina led three Bollywood dances at her friend's wedding in Udaipur, India, at the epic Sangeet!
2024 started off with two whimsical group dances in Ellen Robbins' Alumni Dance Concert at NYLA, followed by the incredible experience of singing at Radio City Music Hall in The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers concerts in MasterVoices Chorus, conducted by Ludwig Wicki. In April, Marina performed in MasterVoices' The Grapes of Wrath Concert at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Ted Sperling, and participated in the semi-chorus as well. Upcoming: Ellen Robbins' Dance Concert at NYLA, June 8, where Marina will be presenting her first group choreography, to Mozart's Il Re Pastore overture! And Joe Hisaishi Symphonic Concert: Music From the Studio Ghilbli Films, July 11-13, at Madison Square Garden.
Marina Rebecca Chan
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