A Stage of Her Own: Meet JinHi Soucy Rand

Meet JinHi Soucy Rand, the performing artist who's solo show is about to be on the world's stage

Savannah's own will have her autobiographical journey, Bella, featured at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest performing arts festival

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest performing arts festival, featuring theater, dance, and music in more than 300 venues across Edinburgh, Scotland. Last year, artists from 68 countries brought their work to the festival.

This year, Savannah’s own JinHi Soucy Rand will take her solo show to the festival.

“When I was first writing it, my brother Christopher said, ‘You should take this to Edinburgh,’” Rand recalls. “And I loved the idea of presenting my story to the world. And I also love the idea of representing Savannah when I am there.”

Her solo show, Bella, is an autobiographical journey through the life of a woman surviving multiple illnesses and how arts and theater helped her through the darker and more difficult times.

Rand is currently undergoing treatment for stage four lung cancer, and the side effects from treatment were debilitating to both Rand’s daily life and her creativity. But when her oncologist was able to scale back her chemotherapy regimen and still have the treatment be effective, Rand was able to feel more like herself again.

“When my dose was lowered, I felt like I could breathe again,” she says. “And I said to myself, ‘If I can breathe, I can create.’”

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A Lifetime Of Devotion

Theater was always there for Rand, no matter where she found herself. And as an Army brat, Rand found herself in many different places.

“I was born in Seoul, South Korea,” Rand says. “I lived in four different countries growing up, including Italy. We actually lived in Vicenza, where the world’s oldest surviving indoor theater was built in 1585.”

Then came the first of several life-threatening conditions that Rand has faced throughout her life. She was diagnosed with pediatric bone cancer, eventually losing her left leg to the disease at age 14.

Rand almost put theater to the side after that, enrolling to study biology and pre-med at what was then Armstrong State College (now Georgia Southern University—Armstrong Campus).

“I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want to be a doctor,” Rand says with a laugh. “If anything, I wanted to play a doctor.”

But Savannah had already cast its spell on Rand, so she auditioned for a local theater company called City Lights. It was there that she met her husband, Mark.

“Since Mark was also a theater artist, he understood the devotion involved,” she says. “I could never have found a better partner in life than Mark.”

Rand was part of City Lights for eight years and has since worked with several groups and theaters, including the Savannah Theater and the Bay Street Theater. She opened Muse Arts Warehouse in 2010 and hosted more than 2,000 performances over its seven-year run.

At the same time, she was surviving enough health challenges to fill several lifetimes.

“I developed brain tumors in my twenties, and those set off about eight years of Grand mal seizures,” Rand recalls. “Then I dealt with infertility and fibroids in my thirties. And when I turned 43, I was diagnosed with lung cancer."

Through it all, Rand was determined not to lose her true self.

“All of these medical incidents were life-changing, but I didn’t want who I was to change,” she says. “I wanted to keep my whimsy and my sense of adventure. At the same time, these challenges have changed the way I talk about illness. I am open about my situation because I don’t want anyone else to feel alone.”

Two Incredible Teams

The parallel worlds of artist and survivor are part of the exploration that Rand will take audiences through in Edinburgh. And although it’s a solo show, Rand said she could never do it alone.

“I have an amazing team working on this with me,” she says. “I couldn’t do this without them.”

Simply writing the show seemed impossible just two years ago when the side effects of Rand’s chemotherapy treatment left her short of breath, physically weak and at an extremely low weight. At one point she needed a wheelchair to remain mobile. That’s when her oncologist, Allison Spellman, MD, arranged for Rand to receive lower and sometimes intermittent doses of treatment at the Nancy N. and J.C. Lewis Cancer & Research Pavilion (LCRP).

“Individualized treatment is rooted in precision and partnership,” Dr. Spellman says. “It’s so important to tailor care to each patient’s unique experience, and it was gratifying to be able to do this with JinHi. With any patient, if we can maintain effectiveness while lowering a dose to reduce side effects, we will.”

Dr. Spellman, Nurse Practitioner Vanessa Brink, and the staff at the LCRP are a different kind of support team, but their efforts have helped make Rand’s dream of a solo show on the world stage a reality.

“I love all of my people at the LCRP,” Rand says. “Their support reflects what I know and love about theater, which is that community makes you stronger.”

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You can see a local preview of Bella and help support the Edinburgh production. Click here to learn more.