PLAYWRIGHT

Irene (Fan) Yi is a bilingual playwright, dramaturg, and performer. She holds a BA in English Literature from Wuhan University, an MA in Arts Administration from Indiana University Bloomington, and an MA in Theatre Studies and Dramaturgy from the University of Ottawa. Her work lives between text, sound, projection, and movement, and emerges from sustained engagement with underserved and marginalized communities. She creates interdisciplinary works to examine how systemic violence shapes the body and memory, and to question how power is internalized, how voice is mediated or withheld, and how lives are narrated by others when self-agency is constrained. 
Her recent playwriting projects include I Have a Dream in Chinese, Human Acts, Space Unknown, An Unfinished Portrait of Her, and THE HOTPOT. Her work has been developed or presented through the Advance Theatre Festival, Black Theatre Workshop’s Club Zed Playwright Festival, Yu Theatre Toronto, rice and beans theatre’s Polyphonic Residency. She is currently developing projects with Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal and Digital Development Project. She received an Honourable Mention from the Human Migration Literary Award. Her broader theatre practice includes working as a dramaturg, director, and performer on productions such as The Reaper and The Whale (Davis Shakespeare Festival), The Pillowman (Indiana University Bloomington), and Night, Mother (Wuhan University).