plays

full lengths

The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness (3M, 3W)
Full-lenth, two acts, 90 minutes
Greta and Han have been uprooted from China to Chicago and now find themselves in a tiny East Village apartment with their distant rock journalist uncle. In these close quarters, Greta’s rebelliousness turns dangerous. A play about the treatment and medication of teenage rebellion, children raising children, invented family and shifting notions of home.
Produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company, November 8-Dec 4 2011.

Big Blind/Little Blind (2W, 4M, 1 of either)
Full-length, two acts, 90 minutes
All at one table: Will, a former proposition player recently sprung from prison.  Shelley, a Chinese American nurse.  Her brother Tim, a hothead who runs a laundry.  Johnny, a Chicano line cook from LA.  And Linus, an African American career temp.  It is a high stakes poker game and the prize is an organ transplant.  The winner lives and the losers go home to die.  And all of it is broadcast on television.  There’s a live poker hand played, an audience vote and two different endings.
Workshop reading by Ma-Yi Theater Company at the Dorothy Strelsin Theater(2008).

Dirty (2W, 2M)
Full-length, 80 minutes
When Cordelia meets Winston on a Brooklyn rooftop, he is still in love with someone else and she doesn’t want any attachments.   So, they do the only thing that makes sense:  they get married. A journey through after-hours clubs and late-night dates and illicit meetings in museum exhibits in New York City.   Dirty explores the changing notions of marriage and monogamy for the generation that left home, reinvented themselves and never looked back.
Staged readings by IRT (2007) and Cannery Works with Stamford Center for the Arts (2006).  Finalist for Cherrylane Mentorship Project (2006) and Ignition Festival at Victory Gardens (2008).

Fast Company (2W, 2M)
Full length, (75 minutes)
Mable Kwan is the best grifter that ever lived.  She taught sons H and Francis to be the best roper and fixer around.  When  youngest daughter Blue puts together the score of the decade, will they all get in on the action or who will walk away with it all?
EST/Sloan Commission, Workshops with EST and Lark Play Development Center (2011).

Found Objects (2W, 2M)
Full-length, 70 minutes
Three Asian American friends run a card counting scam until one of them gets her knee bashed in.  Will they try one last score to have a chance at a future or will the past catch up with them?
Workshop production at Actors Studio Drama School (2005).

The Ripple Effect (1W, 3M)
Full-length, 75 minutes
On a cold January night in New York, a promising young basketball player and poet jumps into the Hudson River. His parents, teachers, sister and best friend are all hounded by reporters who want to know why someone so young and so beautiful flickered out so young.  A play in concentric circles, exploring the reverberations on those who didn’t know him at all to those who knew him too well, The Ripple Effect is a play about living and dying, about picking up the pieces and looking for answers when somebody goes before their time.

TBA (2W, 3M)
Full-length, two acts, 120 minutes
When Silas Park’s girlfriend leaves him, he becomes a shut-in, pumping out blistering autobiographical stories in his little Brooklyn apartment.  Just as Silas finds himself unexpectedly on the verge of literary stardom as the next Asian American wunderkind, his adopted brother Finn shows up on his doorstep, accusing Silas of stealing his life. A play in two acts, in the crevice between fact and fiction.
Produced by Second Generation at The Milagro Theater, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center (2008).
Published in Out of Place and Time edited by Alexis Clements and Christine Evans.  The Women’s Project (2010).

one-acts

“Caught” (1M, 1W) 30 min.
Lenny won’t act her age and neither will her Dad.  A play about a father and daughter growing up together.
Produced by No Pants Theater Company at Manhattan Theater Source (2001).

“Closing Up Shop” (1W, 2M) 11 min.
When local legend Old Su has decided it’s time to sell his convenience store, he begins a search to find the right person to take his place at the register.  Unemployed young father Sam shows up to take the reigns, if Su will let him.
Produced as part of Seven.11 Convenience Theatre: The Final Year at Center Stage (2009).
Published in The Best of Seven.11 Convenience Theatre: 2003-2009.

“Dissipating Heat” (2W, 1M) 11 min.
Auntie Fatso runs a crackseed store in Honolulu.  Omar takes orders for cigarettes and orange juice for delivery from Pink Dot, LA.  Michiko works the front counter at M2M, a Japanese convenience store in the East Village, NY.  They all work they graveyard shift and dream about the future while haunted by the past.  A play of 3 interlocking monologues set in the middle of the night.
Produced as part of 7-Eleven Convenience Theatre by Desipina and Company at the Tenement Theater (2003).  Finalist for the 2005 Heideman Award from Actors Theater of Louisville.

“First” (3M, 3W) 45 min.
A daisy chain play about falling for all the wrong people.  Actors play multiple parts.
Produced by Above Ground Theater Company at Trilogy Theater Annex (2003).

“The Further Adventures of Little Goth Girl” (2W, 3M) 14 min.
Little Red Riding Hood goes Goth and takes on New York City.  And she grows up.  And she gets confused.   And she loses her way.  How will she find her way home?
Produced as part of Ten by Second Generation at the Public Theater (2007).

“Girl Bully” (1W, 1M) 30 min.
Albert shows up in a new Brooklyn neighborhood and becomes the new toy of Viv, the resident bully on the block.  As they do battle, they slowly start to become friends until Viv is ripped out of Brooklyn and they lose one touch.  Many years when Viv comes looking for Albert to teach her how to come home.
Workshop Production at Actors Studio Drama School (2005).

“Mending” (1W, 2M) 10 min.
When Corey goes missing, the whole world is looking for her.  There may be only one person in the world who can fine her and it’s not at all who you’d expect.
Produced by The Women’s Project as part of “Playing in Traffic” at EST (2010).

“Next Big Thing” (2M) 10 min.
What lengths people will go to in order to invent the “next big thing?” And what happens when the little guy takes on the man.  A boxing match between two men locked in a room waiting for straw to be spun into gold.
Produced as part of Vampire Cowboys’ Revamped at the Battle Ranch (2007).

forthcoming

Troublemakers, a full length play
The Hatmaker’s Dilemna, a screenplay
An Untitled Play on Game Theory