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"Spotlight on the Prince of Darkness" (John Coulbourn)
The voyage from British novel to Canadian musical stage has been a complex one. But whatever the twists and turns in its routing have been, it can't be as complicated as the route that brought Juan Chioran (pronounced key-OR-in) to the title role. With roots that stretch back to Northern Italy - and from there to Romania - the 35-year-old Chioran was born in Argentina and came to Toronto in 1975.
"So I did all my growing up in Canada," he concludes.
It wasn't a childhood that led logically to the theatre, although: "I've always been on the stage in some form or another," Chioran recalls. "Folk dancing as a kid, singing in the choir."
However brief they were, those moments in the limelight were enough to lead him to York University and a drama major.
"They kicked me out and I went to the University of Alberta (in Edmonton) and graduated," he says, not a little proudly.
Having developed a love of the classics, it wasn't long before he ended up in Stratford, where, along with a stint in "Kiss of the Spiderwoman", Chioran has made a name in musical theatre.
(excerpts from The Toronto Star - May 30, 1999)
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