Darian Dauchan is an award winning actor, writer, poet, and musician who has appeared on both Broadway (Twentieth Century starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche) and Off Broadway theatre (Jean Cocteau Rep., Classical Theatre of Harlem). TV credits include Law and Order, Nickelodeon's Bet the House, as Darian the "SoundFX" Guy, and the Lionsgate feature film Things Never Said.
Darian's solo shows include: Fallen Patriots (NYC Fringe), Texaco's Last Stand (Ohio Theatre/ IGNITE Festival), Media Madness (Kitchen Theatre Company, Ithaca, NY), Entertainer's Eulogy which had limited engagements at the Playhouse on the Square (Memphis, TN), Kitchen Theatre Company (Ithaca, New York), Whitefire Solo Theatre Festival (Los Angeles, CA), and Theatre ROW (United Solo Festival), Voice Power (Arts for All’s Audience Project Tour) and Obamatry: A Spoken Word Remix on the 44th President of the United States of America (Under St. Marks Theater, SPKRBOX Festival, Norway) originally presented by Horse Trade Theater Group in conjunction with the Bowery Arts and Science.
Darian's first screenplay Kalfou (A Crossroads Tale) co-written with Darian's sister Desha Dauchan was selected into the Film Independent's Screenwriters Lab, home to the popular Spirit Awards, and the L.A. Film Festival.
Darian has also embraced the art of Spoken Word/Performance Poetry and within Darian's first three months had won slams at all three major poetry venues in New York City. Darian was a member of the 2006 National Poetry Slam Team for the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe, was crowned the 2007 Urbana Grand Slam Champion for the Bowery Poetry Club, was a 2008 Nuyorican Grand Slam Finalist, and was the 2009 New Word Artist for Urban Word NYC in conjunction with the Dance Theatre Workshop now known as New York Live Arts. Darian has toured across the country at poetry venues, including the famous Green Mill in Chicago, and has also performed at colleges that include the prestigious Yale University, FIT, and New York University. Darian’s popular Obama poem went viral during the historic 2008 election. Darian was also featured on the FIAT Storyteller's Series.
Darian is the founder of The Spoken Word Almanac Project, a poetry collective committed to writing poems on current world events. Darian conceived the spoken word trilogy shows Slam 101, 102, and 103 for Lincoln Center's Meet the Artist Series, co-written with poets Shanelle Gabriel and Erik Maldonado, and has toured around the Tri- state area with the support of Young Audiences New York. The 4th installment Eco-Poets:Enviroslammin was presented and developed in the New Victory Labworks Residency. Darian is also a Teaching Artist for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Get Lit-Words Ignite, Senior Advisor to the Climate Museum, and a Mentor for Urban Word NYC, a grassroots non-profit organization that provides free, safe, uncensored and ongoing writing and performance opportunities for NYC teens.
Darian was awarded four diversity scholarships from the Upright Citizens Brigade for sketch comedy and improv, was also the winner of The Jerome Foundation's Stakeholder's Choice Award, and Death Boogie, Darian's Hip Hop Poetry Musical was the winner of two Edinburgh Fringe Festival Musical Theatre Matters Awards for BEST New Music and BEST Innovation of a Musical. Black Sheep, Darian's fifth solo show was commissioned by the Kitchen Theatre Company with the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts, and placed 3rd for BEST Play at the 2015 Downtown Urban Theater Festival.
Darian's band The Mighty Third Rail are American Music Abroad Finalists for the U.S. State Department, and performed at SPKRBOX, the first Hip Hop Theater Festival in Norway. Darian is the former Loop Station Vice Champion of the American Beatbox Championships and is most known for The Brobot Johnson Project, an Afrofuturism, Sci Fi Hip Hop transmedia piece which won for Outstanding Comedy Series at the LA Web Festival, BEST soundtrack at the Escape Velocity Festival sponsored by the Museum of Science Fiction, and BEST editing at the Independent Television Festival. The show The Brobot Johnson Experience is a critically acclaimed Ben Brantley New York Times Critics' Pick.
Most recently Darian was nominated for a Drama League award for Darian's piece Brobot PSA in the AFO Solo Short series, a contributing voice-over actor for the short doc Lynching Postcards directed by Christine Turner, produced by Fireflight Films and MTV Studios which won the Image Award for Outstanding Short Form Special, and is a Howard Gilman and New Music USA grantee. Darian's the narrator for the soon to be released audiobook Master Class on Being Human published by Beacon Press. Newly released music Doin' it Live and Ohm can be found on all streaming platforms.. www.brobotjohnson.com