ANNOUNCING THE INAUGURAL COHORT OF PROJECT YZ ARTISTS
Project YZ is a new AAPI Artist Residency program that supports the development of original projects by and about people from the AAPI immigrant and Asian diaspora communities. Project YZ aims to uplift voices of AAPI creators and shine a light on the AAPI community. In addition to $10,000 in direct support, the one-year residency program will offer professional development and research opportunities in addition to a one-week workshop.
Rui Dun is a bicoastal stage director based in Oregon and New York. Originally from China, she has found her voice in migration stories. She has collaborated with artists from China, Turkey, England, United States to create work that speaks to cross-cultural experiences. In New York, her work has been seen at 3-Legged Dog, The Tank, Hudson Guild Theatre, New Ohio Theatre, UNFIX NYC, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, NY Fringe, and New York Theatre Festival. Credits include The Author's Voice (3LD), The Feast (3LD), Anne Frank Lives! (Hudson Guild Theater), SHINKA (assistant director, PCTF), If Women Rose Rooted (The Tank), June Is The First Fall (assistant director, New Ohio Theatre).
Yilong Liu is a Lambda Literary Award winning playwright based in New York. He is a 2022-2023 Lila Acheson Wallace American playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School. Yilong grew up in China and received his MFA from University of Hawai‘i. He is a Core Writer at Playwrights’ Center and has developed work with Ojai Playwrights Conference, EST/Youngblood, Kennedy Center, Space on Ryder Farm, among others. Other awards include Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award. Currently, he is under commissions from Audible's Emerging Playwrights Fund and EST/Sloan Project. Plays include The Book of Mountains and Seas (Lambda Literary Award for Drama), June is The First Fall (Yangtze Rep, Original Works Publishing), Joker (Po’okela Award, Kumu Kahua Theatre), Flood in The Valley, a Bilingual Folk Musical (Beijing Tianqiao Theatre Center, Gung Ho Project), PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute (NCTC), and Good Enemy (Audible, Ojai Playwrights Festival).
Minghao Tu is a playwright from Wuhan, China. He is currently a 2050 Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Van Lier Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, and a 2022/23 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. He has been a resident playwright of Pipeline Theatre Company's 2020/2021 PlayLab, and a 2021 Travis Bogard Artist-in-Residence at the Eugene O'Neill Foundation. His works have been presented/produced at Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America, Tofte Lake Center, Voyage Theater Company, New York Public Library, Ground Floor Theatre, and UT New Theatre; featured on The Steppenwolf Theatre’s The Mix; Finalists: the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and the 2021 Woodward/Newman Award at the Bloomington Playwrights Project; Semifinalists: PlayPenn, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, and Shakespeare's New Contemporaries at American Shakespeare Center. He has been a Jame A. Michener fellow at UT Austin (MFA: 2020).