2020-2021 Season

MEET THE ARTISTS

E.J. An (Actor, my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today) — Select theatre credits include Dreams of Red Pavilions with Pan Asian Rep;  Jihad performed at the Women on Stage for Peace Festival in Bogota, Colombia; In Transit with Modern Day Griot (featured in NY Times); Silencing Ning at Emerging Artist Theatre; and Edward II with The Queens Company. TV/Film credits include Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Shades of Blue; Law & Order: SVU. Thank you to Chongren, Sally, and Stefani for this opportunity. www.ejansite.com

Carolina Đỗ (she/her) (Actor, Stacy in the States) is an actor, playwright, producer, and community organizer. As a first generation Việt born in America, the child of refugees and descendant of freedom fighters, she believes strongly in the power of weaving new and de-colonizing narratives for new world building. Her work is grounded in storytelling as a tool in the fight for liberation and centers around transgenerational healing, diasporic longings, and collective storytelling. She is a founding Artistic Leader of The Sống Collective (http://thesongcollectivenyc.org/) whose mission is to nurture a community of artists whose work explores questions of identity, race, intersectionality, immigration, and the refugee experience. As an actor, she has worked on Broadway in back-to-back shows at Second Stage, collaborated with PlayCo, Piper Theater, LoadingDock, CreativeTime.  She's had films screened at SXSW, Austin Film Festival, Outfest, AAIFF, among many others. TV: FBI: Most Wanted, Blue Bloods, Law & Order SVU. As a playwright, she has incubated her work with the Naked Angels' Issue Project Lab and Piper Theater. Her play, My Mother's Daughter, was a 2019 Space On Ryder Farm Semifinalist and 2020 BRICLAB Finalist. She just completed a two-week residency at JACK, centered on exploring conversations with our ancestors and how to hold onto hope. As a community organizer, her work is grounded in radical care. She organizes where she is needed: anti-deportation work, community fridges, bailouts, jail support, undocumented communities, mutual aid, etc. 

Lennox T. Duong (Actor, Ghost Story) is a Vietnamese Asian American actor from Fresno, California. She is thrilled to be collaborating with playwright Han Tang on her powerful spoken-word piece for Yangtze Repertory Theatre’s Liao Zhai project. She is going into her final year of training at The Juilliard School. Her recent roles include Imogen from Cymbline, Masha in Three Sisters, Amina in Dance Nation, and a role that will forever be imprinted in her heart is Mulan in Mulan and the Battle on Black Mountain.

Chongren Fan (Director) is a New York-based stage director, originally from Shanghai, China. He is the Artistic Director of Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America and serves as Producing Associate at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. Directing Credits: Damon Chua’s The Emperor’s Nightingale (Theatre Row, 2019 OBA Award nomination); Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Romulus the Great (TBG Theatre); Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s 410[GONE] (TFTNC), China Premiere of Marie Jones’ Stones in His Pockets (Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre). Since 2019 he has been developing a new musical Shanghai Sonatas (Book by Alan Goodson, Music by Xiang Gao, and lyrics by Joyce Hill Stoner). The musical is based on the memoirs of Jewish refugee musicians who escaped Nazi Germany and found refuge in Shanghai, and how music helped them to survive the war. Chongren was the Deputy General Manager of China Performing Arts Agency North America overseeing large scale live performances from China to United States from 2015-2020. He was a Jonathan Alper Directing Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club, Resident Artist at Mabou Mines, and Resident Director at the Flea Theater. He has been a guest lecturer at Barnard College and Yale School of Drama. He currently sits on Off Broadway League’s Equity Inclusion Diversity committee. MFA Sarah Lawrence College. www.chongrenfan.com

Julia Gu (Actor, Day 364. The Scaled Boy) theater credits: I Know You (Dear Ireland project for Abbey Theatre of Ireland), BAb(oo)shka (St.Ann’s Warehouse), Chinese Opera and Modern Drama (Lenfest Center), Medusa Volution (Happylucky No.1), Salome (Irondale Theater), Salesman之死 (Laguardia Performing Arts Center), Speaking As Then (Columbia Schapiro Theater). Film credit: Illness (short). She is one half of comedy duo MOMOFUGU. Trained at Maggie Flanigan Studio. www.juliaguxi.com

Bindi Kang (Dramaturg) is a freelance dramaturg, a doctoral candidate in Program of Theatre and Performance at CUNY Graduate Center, and she also holds a MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. As a scholar and dramaturg, her research and creating interest include modern and contemporary adaptation of historical and classical plays, especially in productions related to performing everyday, urban dramaturgy and digital culture. She has worked with several artists and cultural institutions, including Yangtze Repertory Theatre, New York Chinese Opera Society and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, etc.

Stefani Kuo (郭佳怡) (Writer, my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today) is a poet/playwright/performer and native of Hong Kong and Taiwan. She received her B.A. from Yale and is an MFA Playwriting Candidate at the Yale School of Drama. Fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and English, she is interested in crafting multicultural, multilingual narratives for an international audience. She has been an awardee of the Jerome Fellowship at PWC, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, finalist for the National Playwrights Conference, Jerome fellowship at Lanesboro Arts Centre, Many Voices Fellowship at PWC, the Working Farm with SPACE on Ryder Farm, Van Lier New Voices Fellowship, NAP Series, DVRF Playwrights' Program, BRIC Lab, semi-finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, Princess Grace Fellowship, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Scratchpad Series at Playwrights Realm. She was a member of Interstate-73, Page 73’s Writers Group, in 2019. Her work in creative non-fiction, poetry, and translation have appeared in The New York Times, China Hands, Yale Literary Magazine, and more. Her poetry has been displayed as an installation piece, as part of Berlin Art Week 2017 at the Centre of Substructured Loss. She is represented as a playwright by Kevin Lin at CAA and Jacob Epstein at Lighthouse Management. (www.stefanikuo.com) (For more on Hong Kong http://parachute.substack.com)

Yilong Liu (Writer, Do You Still H8 Me) is a New York-based playwright. He grew up in China and received his MFA from University of Hawai‘i. Yilong is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. He is a member of EST/Youngblood, a Core Writer at Playwrights’ Center, and a two-time resident of SPACE on Ryder Farm. Currently, he is under commissions from Audible’s Emerging Playwrights Fund and the EST/ Sloan Project. Plays include The Book of Mountains and Seas (Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award), June is The First Fall (Yangtze Rep, Kumu Kahua Theatre, Original Works Publishing), Joker (Po’okela Award, Kumu Kahua Theatre, National Queer Theatre), PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute (upcoming rolling premieres), and Good Enemy (Audible, Ojai Playwrights Festival). (www.YilongLiu.com)

Han Tang (Writer, Ghost Story) was born in Beijing. She’s the first Chinese National to graduate from the Juilliard School’s Drama Division. As an actor, Han had worked with Theater companies like The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Broadway Asia, The Guthrie Theater, etc. Started in 2009, Han transitioned behind the scenes. Her short film “Love? Pain” was selected for the DisOriented Asian American Film Festival. And her documentary short “Yellow Face” screened at 12 Universities across the US. In 2013, Han traveled to Yun Nan, China, and spent 3 months living in Tibetan villages, working as a writer and casting director/2nd AD for independent art film “DeLan”. “DeLan” eventually won Best Feature Film at the 2016 Shanghai International Film Festival. In 2018, Han started her journey as a playwright. Her play “Missing 11” won a National playwriting competition and debuted at China’s National Theater’s Black Box Theater in 2019. Also in 2019, Han had the honor to work on the award-winning Taiwanese Musical “Reeds Unborn” at Taiwan’s WeiWuYing National Theater. Other than the arts, Han also loves to travel and teach. She has been to 29 countries and worked as a teaching artist in 6 different countries.

Jennifer Tsai (Actor, Do You Still H8 Me) is a NYC based actor and entrepreneur. Theater credits include: Two Mile Hollow (Yale Cab), Mope (Ensemble Studio Theatre), I Am This For You (Ars Nova), 4000 Miles (Baltimore Center Stage), The Mysteries (The Flea), and Thomas Bradshaw’s JOB (The Flea). TV credits include: The Other Two, High Fidelity, The Village, and The Blacklist. Film credits include: JLo’s Marry Me as well as the independent features Inside the Rain, When We Grow Up, Lust Life, and Deborah Kampmeier’s Split. In her non-acting time, Jennifer is the CEO and co-founder of the female-run startup Shoott and resides in New Jersey with her husband, 3 rescue dogs and 1 rescue cat. Education: The Studio New York. www.jennifertsay.com @jenjentsay 

Minghao Tu (Writer, Day 364. The Scaled Boy) — Born in Wuhan, China and currently based in NY, Minghao Tu writes plays that investigate the idea of self-(re)invention and seeking belonging in unlikely places. He is a member of Pipeline Theatre Company's 2020/2021 PlayLab, and a 2021 Travis Bogard Artist in Residence at the Eugene O'Neill Foundation. His plays have been developed and presented/produced at Voyage Theater Company, Tofte Lake Center, New York Public Library, Ground Floor Theatre, Lucky Chaos Productions, and UT New Theatre; featured on The Steppenwolf Theatre’s The Mix; and semifinalists at PlayPenn, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, American Shakespeare Center, and the Many Voices Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center. He was a Jame A. Michener fellow at UT Austin.

Livian Yeh (Writer, Stacy in the States) is a writer and translator living in San Francisco, CA. Her plays have won awards at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, made the Kilroy’s honorable mention, and been workshopped at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. Her bylines have appeared in StarTrek.com, The Bold Italic, and Boston’s Sampan Newspaper, among other publications. (she/her) livianyeh.com

Fufan Zhang (Design) is a Chinese scenic designer and visual artist based in NYC.  She was a resident scenic designer at National Sawdust for 2017 season and a Donald M. Oenslager fellowship Award in Design recipient.  She received her MFA from Yale School of Drama in 2017. Credits: Rough Magic (New School), The Treatment (IATI Theater), We are not well (The Lee Strasberg Theater), The Nutcracker (The Garde Arts Center), Cry it out, Birds of North America, Arsonist, Where All the Good Rabbits go (Thrown Stone Theater Company), Winterreise Festival (National Sawdust), Seven Guitars (Yale Rep), The Oresteia, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Amy and the Orphans (Yale School of Drama), Mies Julie, Phaedra’s Love (Yale Summer Cab), Salt Pepper Ketchup (Yale Cab). Other credits included production design for Yamakawa, The Terrorists (Best Foreign Short Film Award, Seoul International Youth Film Festival), Show Time (Best Film, 48 Hour Film Project, Beijing) and Yashan (Excellent Play in Students’ Drama Festival of Gold Hedgehog, Beijing). Fufan has a BFA in stage, film, and television design from The Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. www.zhangfufan.com