May 12 at 7:00pm – May 13 at 8:30pm
• Thursday, May 12, 7PM
• Friday, May 13, 7pm
In celebration of Asian Heritage Month, on Thursday and Friday, May 12 and 13, the Eastern Region Equal Employment Opportunity Committee of Actors’ Equity Association in conjunction with Leviathan Lab will present an Asian American Women Playwrights Short Play Festival. Readings of new works will take place on the second floor of AEA, 165 West 46 St., from 7 p.m. both evenings. Admission is free, but please RSVP to Pearl Brady at (212) 869-8543 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (212) 869-8543 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or via email at eeo@actorsequity.org. The same program will be presented on both evenings.
Playwrights represented include: Leanne Cabrera, Nora Chau, Elaina Erika Davis, Siho Ellsmore, Nancy Eng, EEOC Co-Chair Christine Toy Johnson, Dorim Lee, Marisa Marques, May Nazareno, Kristine M. Reyes, Eileen Rivera and Susan Soon He Stanton.
About The Festival:
Recent statistics show that only 17% of the plays produced on America’s stages each season and 12.9% of major New York productions are written by women*. In addition, not one Asian American female playwright has ever had a play produced on Broadway. Although Onoto Watanna (nee Winnifred Eaton), a Canadian writer of Chinese and British descent (who, for some reason, chose to write under a Japanese pseudonym) did have her play “A Japanese Nightingale” produced on Broadway, that was back in 1903.
In celebration of Asian Heritage Month, Christine Toy Johnson (Playwright/Actor and Co-chair of AEA’s EEOC), Ariel Estrada (EEOC member and founder of Leviathan Lab), Nelson T. Eusebio III (Resident Director at Leviathan Lab), and Ji-Hyun Lee (playwright) have come together to produce this first annual Asian American Female Playwrights Short Play Festival to foster the spirit of hope that someday these statistics might change, and to create a platform from which some of our underheard Asian American female playwrights can fly.
Half of our playwrights being presented at this festival have been produced at theatres from New York City to the Philippines. The plays’ diverse topics include the recent earthquake in Japan, online dating, dysfunctional Filipino families, Charlie Sheen’s women, the Japanese internment camps and the Tiger Mom.