ROHIT CHOKHANI

​Rohit Chokhani is a Jessie Richardson (Vancouver, Canada) and Betty Mitchel (Calgary, Alberta) Theatre Award-winning Artistic Director, Producer and Director. Rohit was awarded the prestigious Vancouver NOW Representation and Inclusion Award in 2018. He is also the recipient of the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award in the Large Theatre Category for Significant Artistic Achievement (2017) and the recipient of the Shiamak Vancouver Community Award (by Bollywood star/choreographer Shiamak Davar) in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of Entertainment and Theatre Arts (2017).

 

Chokhani, who is the 2020 Finalist for Crow Theatre’s RBC Rising Star Emerging Director Prize (Toronto, Canada), adapted and directed the holiday classic The Jungle Book at Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary (2022). He is the first South Asian of Indian descent to direct at Bard on the Beach, Western Canada’s largest not-for-profit, professional Shakespeare Festival. Rohit completed five seasons at Bard on the Beach in numerous different capacities and is the co-creator / co-director of All’s Well That Ends Well which received four Jessie Richardson Theatre Award nominations including the Critics’ Choice Innovation Award nomination and was picked by numerous critics as one of the best shows in Vancouver for 2019. Prior, Chokhani’s reimagination of Anosh Irani’s Bombay Black was picked as one of the top 20 shows on Vancouver stages in 2017 and won the Pick of the Fringe Award at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Rohit’s directorial work has spanned across numerous leading Canadian institutions such as Bard on the Beach, Firehall Arts Centre, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects, Evergreen Cultural Centre, b current performing arts, TheatreOne and Vancouver Fringe Festival.   

 

Chokhani has held Artistic / Executive leadership and/or Sr. management roles with numerous different Canadian organisations including Alberta Theatre Projects, Vancouver Fringe Festival, Touchstone Theatre, Urban Ink Productions, Diwali Fest and South Asian Arts Society.  He founded Diwali in B.C, Project SAT (South Asian Theatre), co-created the Monsoon Festival of Performing Arts and was a Producer-in-Residence at the National Arts Centre - English Theatre.  Throughout the past decade, Rohit has been involved in over 35 theatre productions including 8 international touring productions . He is the First Indo-Canadian executive in Canada to have landed an executive role at a venue-based theatre organization (Alberta Theatre Projects) with a budget of 3+ million dollars. He is also the First BIPOC executive in the 40 year long history of the Vancouver Fringe.

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Rohit's work has been featured in leading Canadian Media outlets including the CBC News, Globe and Mail, CBC Radio, The Georgia Straight, Calgary Herald, Global News, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, SCENE magazine, The Westender as well as prominent South Asian Magazines Darpan and Drishti.   He has served as a board member for PACT (Professional Association for Canadian Theatre) and BC (British Columbia) Alliance for Arts and Culture. He has contributed his diverse voice at numerous national and international industry panels.  Rohit grew up in Bombay (Mumbai), home to Bollywood, the centre of the Indian subcontinent’s vibrant performing arts industry. He speaks four different languages and comes from the Marathi & Marwari lineage of India, which is historically rooted in oral traditions and art forms. Rohit is highly passionate about making performing arts equitable and sustainable by providing representation for the unrepresented.