Actress Lisa Jai shot by Pat Maus
While most actors have agents steering them towards activism, a sort of publicity go-to when good press is needed, actress Lisa Jai is an activist because she has first-hand knowledge about how important it is to speak out and help others.
Her life dramatically changed at the early age of three. Just like a lot of girls, Jai started out as a little ballerina, learning how to plié and pirouette at a local dance studio.
It was at this point that, unlike the others, Jai realized she couldn’t fully straighten her arms. A few years later, her knees began to swell and she began falling down unexpectedly. Hospitalized, Jai was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
Her life would never be the same.
Fortunately, Jai had already become a sought after actress, a creative outlet that has continued to keep her working since childhood. Jai was one of the children who acted alongside People’s Choice Award winner Mr. T in the series T and T.
Undoubtedly a surreal experience for Jai acting alongside such a big star at a time when most of her peers were still learning how to change the television station, the young star held her own. She got into voice acting soon after, and helped to lead numerous animated shows including Medabots, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, The Magic School Bus and Barbar to success. Jai was even cast in award-winning Nora Ephron’s directorial debut This is My Life, in addition to starring alongside Roseanne Barr in her animated series Lil’ Rosie.
Non-stop work and non-stop hits, Jai continued like this through her teen years and into college. While undergoing formal training as an actress in college Jai felt she had something to prove.
She explains, “From the desire to prove myself—as people with a crushed self esteem do—I took the required technical jobs of my program that no one wanted, and I loved it. I did tech/lights and sound, stage managed, front of house, set.”
Jai was the producer of a theater festival at Stella Adler every eight weeks. She says those early days of taking the jobs no one else wanted taught her the importance of humility.
The challenges of acting, and the effects of her rheumatoid arthritis, eventually caught up with her. Forced to take a year off, she recalls, “It is hard for anyone who wants to be an actor. Disabled, Abled (whatever that means), Ethnic, Blonde.”
It was during this time that Lisa Jai began feeling the call to politics. Still not ready to identify her grueling episodes with rheumatoid arthritis as something that marked her as a “disabled” actress, Jai was committed to fighting for equal rights.
But like any good dramatic play, Jai was led to look at her very being to identify her true strengths, a realization that has endowed her with uncompromising compassion for all human beings and their right to achieve their dreams.
A member of ACTRA (the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), Jai was literally seated next to a former co-star who was the ACTRA’s diversity committee chairman.
It was at this point that Jai truly realized she could “be the change” and possibly help countless others that she knew were facing physically debilitating challenges as well.
Eventually being awarded with the City of Toronto’s Unsung Hero Award in 2011, Jai was fully committed to spreading the word that diversity includes actors who want to perform in the arts—and they need to be included.
Yet Jai was also becoming personally aware of something missing from her life. “I missed acting too much,” she admits. “Not voice acting. Stage acting.”
She had moved to Los Angeles and put her heart on the line, a move that served her well in her career. Jai immediately landed the starring role in a huge production.
“I was cast in Cornerstone Theater’s production of Lynn Manning’s The Unrequited: A Tale Between Two Worlds. I played the lead: Isela Sanchez; a young woman living in a chair due to Polio during the 40’s,” explains Jai.
She’s got stage presence, along with that something else, which could be called nothing other than pure tenacity, a much needed trait in the world of theatre.
The woman who was a six-year old girl when she first took the stage in Toronto, Jai played in “Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang,” directed by Jeff Hyslop, who later went on to star in “The Phantom of the Opera.”
“My favorite form of acting is theatre,” Lisa insists.
A woman who has faced physical pain, even deformities as a result of arthritis, Lisa Jai has continued to light up the stages of LA.
She’s handled difficult roles such as in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, where she played Mrs. Banks, a role that, in order to age her beauty required two hours of prosthetics every performance.
After that was Titus Andronicus, where Jai was cast to star as Titus in The Lab Theater’s Shakespearean production. Taking a break to have an arthritic-related surgery, Jai was back immediately after to play another incredible role.
“I had two hours of prosthetics again. This time I was in a bald cap,” recalls Lisa, of the distinguished Illyrian Theater’s production of 99 Ways to Fuck a Swan directed by Caitlin Hart and written by Kim Rosenstock, the writer behind the hit television series the New Girl.
She just closed the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play What of the Night by Cuban-American playwright Maria Irene Fornes. Performed at The Vagrancy in LA, What of the Night received the prestigious Ovation Recommendation, a true to testament to Jai’s unparalleled talents.
The actress says what sets her apart from other actors is not her physical deformities as a result of rheumatoid arthritis but, rather, her humility. She explains, “I’ve had fellow cast members want to cancel shows because there’s a small audience. Are you kidding me? I’ll perform to an audience of one.”
For this actress, who knows the value of every “one” person, the stage is lucky to have her. Truly, the world of entertainment is a better place because of her courage.
“I’m happy I took the hugest leap of faith, trained with the best of ‘em, and I’ve been welcomed onstage here in LA with open hearts—arthritis or not,” beams Lisa.