Sister Joanna Chan – Museum of Chinese in America

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Sister Joanna Chan with the Four Seas Players on February 26, 1972. The company is performing “Beyond the Milky Way” by Wú Zǔguāng (《天河配》吳祖光 ). Photograph taken Emile Bocian, Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Collection.

Sister Joanna Chan (b.1939) is a talented multilingual author, director, and playwright whose work spans North America, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China over four decades. She has written, adapted, and directed over 70 stage productions. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Guangzhou, China, Sister Chan joined the Catholic Church along with her family in 1955. In 1965, after taking her vows and joining the Maryknoll Sisters’ Congregation, she was eventually assigned to the Church of Transfiguration in New York Chinatown in late 1969. During this time, Sister Chan was also attending Teachers College at Columbia University, majoring in theatre. She received her M.A. (1971), M.Ed. (1974) and Ed.D. in 1977.

While exploring a Chinatown made more diverse by recent immigration, Sister Chan noticed a need for a common project to bring largely insular groups within the community together. To this end, she founded the Four Seas Players, which began with a Lunar New Year performance in winter of 1970 and continues to be one of the longest-running Chinese community theater companies in the U.S. Telling stories about Asian America through Asian American actors, the Four Seas Players quickly gained popularity in New York and within the Asian diaspora through the early 1970s. They put on plays and operas in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. It was so successful that Sister Chan was invited to speak on the Dick Cavett Show, a popular talk show airing on ABC, on March 3rd, 1972. Sister Chan was interviewed by guest host Steve Allen and sat amongst popular actresses Selma Diamond and Jayne Meadows.

In 1993, Sister Chan was an honoree alongside I. M. Pei and Yo Yo Ma at An All-Star Salute to Chinese-American Cultural Pioneers hosted at New York City Hall. In 1994, she received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Columbia University’s Teachers College, making her the first Hong Kong-born Chinese American to receive this honor in the college’s 100-year history. In 2017, she was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the OCA-WHV Asian Pacific Americans Advocate. Sister Chan has also had numerous days proclaimed in her honor: July 9th, 1993 and July 9th, 2013 were named “Joanna Chan Day” in the City of New York, and November 11th, 2017 was designated as “Dr. Joanna Chan’s Day” by the New York State Senate. Today Sister Joanna Chan continues to be a community leader and active member of the Maryknoll Sisters’ Congregation.