Jack Oliver Kotanen is an actor, singer, musician, music director, composer, dancer, director, and visual artist, and is a graduate of ADMA New York’s Musical Theatre Conservatory program.

Jack grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. A city in Northwestern Ontario at the boarder of Minnesota and Lake Superior.

He began playing music as soon as he could hold an egg shaker, taking piano lessons beginning at 4 years old, and started doing theatre when he was 8 years old. He has always been drawn to the arts and is in continual search of ways to create.

Jack has performed in over 40 productions in Thunder Bay, as well as multiple cabarets in New York City, at places such as 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, The Green Room 42, and Don’t Tell Mama, having recently produced a cabaret at 54 Below featuring Trans/Non-Binary/GNC artists and focused on the subject of transposing songs to the key best suited to the performer (Trans-pose; music directed by Bree Lowdermilk)

Jack is a transgender/LGBTQ+ advocate, and looks to create a space for historically underrepresented groups in the arts.