GUESTS

Jon Lachlan Stewart is a Montréal-based Canadian actor and theatre director, and founder of the company Surreal SoReal Theater, which produces wild, imaginative reinventions of classical theatre works and adaptations of classical texts.

His two-actor, textless adaptation of Macbeth, Macbeth Muet, has toured all over the world and had over 200 performances, and he continues to direct and create in Montréal, as well as performing in both English and French. He’s currently collaborating with a dance company in Japan on a piece inspired by The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

Jon’s journey into anime began when he was only twelve years old, when he fell (a little too young!) into Akira, Pokémon, Dragonball, and other popular animes. Voicing Kamille Bidan was Jon’s first big role, and he also dubbed the character Miwa in Cardfight Vanguard.

Just like with his work in theater, Jon believes the power of anime is in its ability to bring a collective imagination together, world-wide, and create bold and wildly creative stories that express a deeply potent introspective depiction of humanity. To Jon, Japanese Animes and writers like Haruki Murakami have this ability to find a profound and deep well into the human imagination.

If Jon had to pick his top five favourite Anime’s of all time, it’d have to be Samurai Champloo, The Boy and the Beast, Akira, Delicious in Dungeon, and Deathnote.

How about you?