Preview Q & A with J.P. Chan!

J.P. Chan, writer and director of DRY CLEAN ONLY, was kind of enough to be the first participant in what we hope will be a regular feature wherein we get to better know the playwrights and filmmakers involved in this season's Take Two! 

Kavi Ladnier, Debargo Sanyal, and Aaron Yoo in DRY CLEAN ONLY

 DA :Theater or Film or both, and why? 
JP:Both. I like feeling inadequate at a variety of pursuits. I'm going to try app development next.
 
DA: What got you into film? 
JP: Loved sci-fi as a kid and always wanted to create worlds for the screen. After a few decades of procrastinating, I finally got around to it.
 
DA: How has your social/ethnic background informed your work? 
JP: I fell into the Asian American film and theatre circles here in New York and met a ton of amazingly talented people. I found I could cast and crew up my films without going very far, so I took advantage of the resources available to me. Very few of my stories are specifically Asian in any way, but they feature lots of Asians behind and in front of the camera. It wasn't at all planned, but I'm very proud that all my films were made with very diverse teams.

DA: What was your inspiration for this film? 
JP: The original cut of this film was actually made as part of a 64 hour film contest. The theme was "AKA," so I tried to explore the idea of secrets. Only after I finished did I realize it was also about fear, which was also the subject of my first short TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT? I followed up DRY CLEAN ONLY with a short called I DON'T SLEEP I DREAM which "completes" this trilogy that explores fear.

DA: What are you working on right now? 
JP: I just finished a sci-fi short that will stream online starting in March at www.futurestates.tv. I'm hoping to shoot a feature later this year and have a reading of a new play.
 
DA: And just to round out J.P. the man, how many baby carrots do you think you could eat in a minute?
JP: Thirty, easy.


Thanks again to J.P. Chan for being such a sport, and be sure to catch DRY CLEAN ONLY at Take Two! February 8th, 2011 at 7PM.  For more info please visit our website at: www.directarts.org/taketwo