Wei-Jen Liao

  I was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. Before moving to California, I was a semi-professional Hip Hop and Ballet dancer. I spent my time dedicated to English as my second language and dancing through the past ten years. From there, I found the beauty in language and dancing, which led me to desire to combine the two elements to express my imagination, thoughts, identity, voice, and feelings as an actor. 

 

Moving from Taiwan to the United States, I had lived in Long Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan. Since 2013, I've lived in California and been the Bay Area theatre, film and commercial actress for 8 years. In 2019, I graduated from San Francisco State University with a bachelor of arts degree (B.A.) in Theatre Performance. My most recent film work in 2021 includes High Stakes and Josephine presenting by the Scenes Plus channel on Roku TV, written and directed by Michael Scordakis; commercial/industrial projects during 2021 include Kikkoman soy sauce, NBC Bay Area, Casino M8Trix; theatre performance includes Salt Pepper Ketchup (Linda) at the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company written by Josh Wilder and directed by Thomas Pang, The Ghost Sonata (the Fiancée) at SFSU written by August Strindberg and directed by John Wilson and Florentina Mocanu-Schendel. 

 

In 2015, I received an associate degree (A.A.) from the School of Acting at the Academy of Art University. My training at AAU focused on both theatrical and screen acting. At the same time, I was fortunate to study classical performance (Shakespeare) with Andrew Hurteau. Besides getting my A.A. degree, I also studied contemporary drama (Round and Round the Garden) with Paul Finocchiaro at Studio A.C.T in San Francisco during the 2015 Summer Training Congress.

 

In addition to acting, I had received Ballet training since I was 14. I studied with MengZhen Chu and Tingwen Chen at the Dance Village in Taiwan for 6 years and a year and half with Andrey Silant and Dorit Koppel at the Broadway Dance Centre, New York City. In 2010, I went on the "Heritage Innovation" tour with Dance Village in Taipei and Taichung.

 

Today, I continue to pursue my acting. Recently, I have been studying acting with Bobby Weinapple at Seydways Acting Studio. My work and dedication guided me to receive the 2019/2020 Teresina Drama Fund Award Scholarship: Outstanding Undergraduate Actor and The Elkind Family Scholarship for Theatre Arts at the School of Theatre and Dance at San Francisco State University. In the following year, I was thrilled to receive the 42nd Annual Telly Awards-Bronze Telly Winner in Social Video: Social Impact (2021)

 

As I've been getting more professional experience on set and theatre through these years, I found more joy, love and passion from being an actor. Each experience is a unique, priceless gift because they help me grow and brings characters and stories alive to share with audiences. 

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