director & choreographer
Jan is fundamentally committed to nurturing cohesion in a company. Under her direction, the rehearsal hall is always a safe place where actors feel free to make mistakes, and discover their best work. Everyone is expected to bring their A game, but it’s a safe place and a place to work hard. She is encouraging, instructive, firm, empowering, confident enough to say “I don’t know” when confronted with a confounding question, and always adopts the best idea in the room while exploring the answer!
She’s a staunch collaborator and considers design an evolving discussion between designer and director. Her aesthetic inclines toward playing with scale and contrast. Although, she comes from a dance background, her choreography is more about creating movement than about creating dance. She most often chooses to direct and choreograph, creatively controlling the physical language of the story and maintaining an uninterrupted narrative. Jan strives to find innovative ways to tell our stories, whether traditional or daringly new.
DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER
resumÉ
Photos by trudie lee / claus anderson / Tim Nguyen / Benjamin Laird
God of Carnage
It's a miracle of pacing and incisive writing that shifts wildly in tone over 75 minutes. All of which makes it a bit a high-wire act for the four actors on stage, one that could easily fall off track in the wrong hands. Luckily, these four actors - not to mention perceptive direction by Jan Alexandra Smith - start off convincing and get even better as the play accelerates into a frenzy of slapstick humour, caustic comments and shifting loyalties.
Calgary Herald - Eric Volmers
The Mountaintop
Back and forth they go, like a pair of sparring soulmates, veering between debating King's non-violence - Camae would prefer to kick ass - before challenging King's treatment of his wife, as he flirts shamelessly with her. It could get awfully claustrophobic in there, but Hanchard and Bain, under the capable direction of Jan Alexandra Smith, manage to keep things interesting throughout the course of a single, long scene that comprises the majority of The Mountaintop - to say the least.
Calgary Herald - Stephen Hunt
