YZ TALKS: WHAT DOES CLUBHOUSE MEAN TO YOU?

The second installment of our summer programming, a live-streamed conversation with playwright Stefani Kuo (my dead husband bought a gun and came back for me today), dramaturg Bindi Kang, cultural consultant Xiaoyi Huang, director Chongren Fan, and producer Sally Shen.

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

Xiaoyi Huang (Cultural Consultant) is a current Ph.D. student of Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University. Interested in pre-modern Chinese Literature, gender studies, women’s history. M.A. in East Asian Studies, Stanford University; M.Phil. in Translation Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong; B.A.in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Tsinghua University. Publications include research on Hong lou meng (Writing and Rewriting under the Constrictions of Narrative Function: A Comparative Study on Chapter titles in the English Translations of Hong lou meng, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2014), poetry reviews (in Dictionary of Tang and Song Ci Poetry, Beijing: Chinese Publishing House, 2012), translations, and short stories.

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)

Sally Shen (Producer) is the Executive Director of Yangtze Repertory Theatre. She is a New York-based theater producer and administrator originally from Beijing, China. By day, she is the Business Development Manager at Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), one of the largest theatre organizations in the world. As an independent producer, her recent New York producing credits include Frontiéres sans Frontières at The Bushwick Starr, Le Problème at American Players Theatre part of the Araca Project 2015; and Ain’t Gonna Make It at ArsNova's ANT FEST 2014. She was the Management Fellow at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2013; during which she launched a $20,000 fundraising campaign for Berkeley Community Fund to sponsor an arts scholarship for Berkeley high school students. Sally was the former Executive Director of Solar Troupe, a theatre ensemble in Beijing dedicated to new works between 2007 and 2011. Prior to coming to the United States, Sally worked as a PR consultant at Ogilvy Public Relations where she worked with multi-national corporations to increase their brand awareness in China through strategic communications plans. She received an MFA in Theater Management from Yale School of Drama and an MBA from Yale School of Management.