About
CAROL ANN TAN ("Cat") is a Singapore-born director, playwright, and dramaturg currently based in Providence, RI. Her aesthetic is contemporary absurdism—strings of internet memes writ large. Her work explodes the play's dramaturgical heart into shocking irreverence, and asks her collaborators to offer up their wholehearted shamelessness in exchange for the gift of finally being seen.
Directing credits include Tango (PrideArts), Wolf Play, Constellations, Much Ado About Nothing, A View From the Bridge (Brown/Trinity), Amphitryon (Theater at Monmouth), Two Mile Hollow, Golf Girl (Brown University), Warrior Class (The Comrades), Domestic Departure (Haven Theatre), Apartment Complex, Domestic Departure (University of Chicago), as well as staged readings of Peking Apples (Echo Theater), Bakkhai (Brown/Trinity), The Mark (Babes With Blades), Mine & Yours (Artemisia Theatre), Dialogue and Rebuttal (Silk Road Rising), Natural Shocks (The Comrades), and Fresh Out the Closet (Asian Improv aRts Midwest). Cat has assisted John Gawlik on Doubt (The Gift Theatre), Dexter Bullard on Mies Julie (Victory Gardens), and Elly Green on You for Me for You (Sideshow Theatre).
As a writer, Cat's plays include Trump Card, Apartment Complex, and Domestic Departure. Cat’s plays have been performed at Haven Theatre, Other Theatre, Brown/Trinity, North Central College, and the University of Chicago. Domestic Departure was awarded second place for the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize.
As a dramaturg, Cat's credits include Vietgone (Writers Theatre), Christmas Mubarak, Wild Boar, American Griot (Silk Road Rising), At the Vanishing Point (The Gift Theatre), The Audience, The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (TimeLine Theatre), Mike Pence Sex Dream, Two Mile Hollow, peerless (First Floor Theater), A Heap See (Sideshow Theatre), Hello Kitty Must Die (SoloChicago Theatre), and In the Wake (The Comrades).
Cat is an artistic associate with Silk Road Rising, a 2017/18 Directors Inclusion Initiate at Victory Gardens, and an MFA Directing candidate at Brown/Trinity (expected 2023).