plays

YI SANG COUNTS TO THIRTEEN
play, 2m, 1w (All Asian American cast); simple set
Inspired by the writings of Korean surrealist author Yi Sang, who died in 1937 at the age of 27. Three characters: Red, Green, and Blue are involved in a love triangle that intermingles poetic scenes, a spoof on detective noir involving limbs as characters, and erotic rituals involving diet coke. Blue must choose between his friendship with Red and his love for Green; but finds that he gets neither in the end. His only solace are the words and images that erupt in his feverish mind, the joy of creation coupled with the sense that the end is fast approaching.


2001 NY Fringe Festival Award for Excellence in Overall Production. Developed while an artist-in-residence at Mabou Mines. Produced at Seoul International Theater Festival (2000, directed by Lee Breuer), New York International Fringe Festival (2001), Kraine Theater (2002), Cornell University (2002).


wAve
play, 3m, 3w (4 Asian American 20-30's actors, 1 Asian American teenager, 1 Caucasian male); simple set (multimedia strongly suggested)
Inspired by the Medea myth. A love story about M and her husband Jason, who leaves her for the bright lights of fame (he becomes the star of the film “Mister Phnom Penh,” the movie version of Miss Saigon). M is isolated by a world where the media personalities Chinky and Gooky reign supreme, where the film version of “Miss Saigon” is the be-all and end-all of existence, and where she can neither be a particle nor a wave. In the end she must come to terms with her past, and clearly define her present and future.

World Premiere 2004, Ma-Yi Theater Company. NY Times Critic's Pick; Winner, Whitfield Cook Prize; Honorable Mention, Bay Area Playwrights Festival; commissioned by Mark Taper Forum Asian Theater Project. Developed at Mark Taper Forum (1999), Ma-Yi Theater & Imua Theater (1999), Public Theater New Work Now! (2000), Arena Stage (2000), Asian American Theater Company (2000), Fluid Motion Theater Company (2002).

GRAVITY FALLS FROM TREES
play, 2 m, 1w (2 Asian American, 1 multi-ethnic); simple set
Isabella goes to the hospital because she is abnormally cold. Soon she finds herself on a cloud with Isaac Newton and a guilt-ridden pilot. All of them are in search of a Newton's "Fourth" Law, one that fuses emotion and motion. Isabella finds that the shared event in their lives was the tragic downing of Korean Air 007, an unfortunate political consequence of the Cold War. While Isabella doesn't necessarily make better sense of the event, she eventually breaks through the emotional freeze that she's been suffering through, and finds a way to lighten the gravity of history.

Commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop First Light Program. Produced at Asian American Theater Company and Dance Theater Workshop.


DRIZZLE AND OTHER STORIES
play, 3m, 2w (All Asian American cast); simple set
A trilogy of one-acts based on short stories by Korean fiction writer Hwang Sun Won. Each play employs spare language, with jagged situations and conflicting ambivalent emotions. "Masks" portrays a world where the rules dictate that two friends find themselves as enemies during a war. "In a Small Island Village" involves a female journalist who finds that language fails her in the harsh world of a remote fishing village in Korea. "Drizzle" is about two real estate men having a coffee break that turns into a discussion about business, war, and the ambivalence of doing the right thing.

2nd place in North West Asian American Theater One-Act Play contest. Workshop productions at Ma-Yi Theater Company and Drama League Directors' Festival. Developed at East West Players, HBO New Writers' Showcase, Circle Rep Laboratory.


CLEVELAND RAINING
play, 2m, 2w (3 Asian American, 1 multi-ethnic); set involves a Volkswagen bug (does not have to be real)
A Korean American brother and sister living in the Ohio countryside: the sister is a medical student who drives the interstate searching for their father; the brother has dreams of a flood and begins building an ark out of a Volkswagen bug. A lonely female motorcyclist and an oddball mechanic enter their lives while the brother and sister try to piece together the fabric of their frayed family history. While the brother builds an engine that runs off emotional loss, the sister finally uncovers the fragile truth of her family, something both revelatory and sad.


1st Prize in Seattle Multicultural Playwrights Festival; published in “But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise” (Temple University Press). Produced at East West Players, Asian American Theater Company & Thick Description, North West Asian American Theater Company, San Diego Asian American Rep, Yale Cabaret.

NEW WORLD
play, 3m, 2w (Multi-ethnic cast); simple set
A collection of one-act dark comedies, all dealing with the theme of cultural colonization. "New World” is a variation on the theme of a boat: we see the conquerors, the conquered, and the modern neuroses that results. “Wonderful Life” is a skewed vision of the Jimmy Stewart film: it plays with subjectivity in the face of a violent crime. “Raisins” is a comedy about two gangsters who’ve just screwed up a job and end up in a heated debate about identity politics. “Konishiki, Mon Amour” involves a young woman’s obsession with Sumo wrestling, Connie Chung, and Hostess dessert products. “Change” is a monologue about an assimilated son and his estranged father—it leaps between their points of view, shedding new perspective on both characters.

Commissioned by New York Shakespeare Festival. Produced at Immigrants Theater Project.

PRINCIPIA
play, 3m, 2w (Asian American and Multi ethnic cast); simple set
A play about the “publish or perish” world of scientific research. Newton Park finds that he’s been accused of falsifying data. The problem is, he’s not sure himself whether or not he’s innocent. As his case becomes ever more muddied, so do his relationships with his former girlfriend (now collaborator), his best friend and his advisor. When his neatly defined world spirals out of control, he actually finds that he learns more about truth than what he’s ever learned in his own research.

Commissioned by the Van Lier Foundation and New York Theater Workshop. Reading in Dance Theater Workshop Just Add Water Festival.

This information is also available on www.newdramatists.org


"Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen" poster design by Richard Hahn.
Photos: Michi Barall, Ron Domingo, Paul H. Juhn, Deborah S. Craig, Patrick McNulty, and Aaron Yoo in "wAve" produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company (Photo by Ralph Pena); Kelvin Han Yee & Karen Amano in "Cleveland Raining" produced by Asian American Theater Company & Thick Description.