Dear vAct Supporters,

We invite you to make a donation today, so that vAct can continue to build bridges between artists, audiences, and communities in Vancouver, in BC, and beyond. This winter, the Jack and Sylvia Gin Foundation and our Board of Directors will be matching donations up to $10,000 to support our upcoming programming next season.

vAct is committed to sowing seeds and incubating new ideas among Asian Canadian storytellers. Our founder Joyce Lam built the first bridge between Asian stories and Vancouver stages. Donna Yamamoto built the second bridge, fully professionalising our work in the sector. Since I joined the company in 2022, we have been working hard on bridging gaps between performing arts disciplines (what), artist development (who), artistic processes (how), the communities we serve (where), and the role of Asian stories within a local and national intra-Asian diaspora context (why).

Your donation will directly support three main areas of vAct’s artistic and community programming:

Mainstage productions & partnerships,
New work & artist development, and
vAct presentations & showcases.

Donate Now

To send a cheque, please include this donation form, and mail to the address indicated on the form.

Fees for artists and production personnel account for 75% of our annual operating budget. For example, last year, that number was approximately $440,000 over 70 staff and contractors, building a season full of artistic and community programming together.

Here’s what people have to say about our artistic programming:

“As an actor who is relatively new to the industry having participated in theatre and film starting just this year, vAct’s Springboard initiative provided me an invaluable opportunity to develop my skills and connect with people in the industry. I learned so much from attending just 4 classes and am sure the skills I developed will assist me in the future as an artist and in my everyday life. As a working student, I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to attend this workshop for free. It was a very meaningful and educational experience.”

“This was an excellent offering for the community; The facilitators, participants and company all had an opportunity to meet, collaborate and deepen relationships. Opportunities like these are important to the arts community to help build relationships, skill and confidence.”

“Playful and safe community learning experience, with challenges offered for all levels. It was a great workout, a clear and enjoyable intro to stage combat, and a satisfying experience of integrating movement and text.”

“I felt very fortunate to receive a spot in this sponsored workshop – making a living as an artist while also finding ways to train and grow on a budget can be tricky, and being given the chance to do just that at no cost was delightful.”

Next season, we are excited to bring you three mainstage partnerships with companies in Vancouver and Toronto, including The Frontliners by Zahida Rahemtulla (Firehall Arts Centre, Blackout Theater, Evergreen Cultural Centre), Love You Wrong Time by Maddie Bautista and Deanna H. Choi (The Cultch, Bad Muse Collective (Toronto)), and A Taste of HK by Anonymous (Pi Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille (Toronto)). In addition, we continue to offer the Creation Lab, a year-long new play development program; Springboard, a free professional workshop series for artists; and various individual and organizational mentorships. In the fall, we will continue to present our vActory showcase series, with two other smaller independent presentations in the fall.

We, collectively, are no strangers to uncertainties. At a time when the world desperately needs compassion and understanding, our determination to support each other becomes more important by each passing minute. Storytelling is essential to humanity because it is an act of collective processing, an acknowledgement of our differences, and a signal of intentionality. Communally engaging with a story is an exercise in empathy. And empathy is the first step to positive action in society. So, we ask you to help us build these bridges by donating to our winter fundraising campaign, and join us in these pockets of cultural spaces where we continue to tell our stories, in ways that only we ourselves can.

Thank you for your support,

Derek Chan 陳嘉昊
Managing Artistic Director