Monday, May 8th, 6pm at SigSpace (Signature Theater Lobby, 480 W. 42nd St., NYC 10036)
Our next show is coming up. It's co-hosted by award-winning playwright Lauren Yee who is presenting an open invitation happy hour AAPI Mixer right after the BBC performance for the AAPI community of NYC theater makers and performing artists.
The 6pm show features new music, dance and performance from six NYC musicians/artists in response to plays from Signature Theater's playwrights in residence -- David Henry Hwang and Lauren Yee:
CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND by Lauren Yee (Horton Foote Prize, Steinberg/ATCA, LA Drama Critics Circle Ted Schmitt Award)
KUNG FU by David Henry Hwang (a depiction of international martial arts star Bruce Lee, and his journey from troubled youth to martial arts legend.)
The event is FREE. RSVP with the link below:
More on the playwrights:
Lauren Yee is a playwright, screenwriter, and TV writer born and raised in San Francisco. She currently lives in New York City. Her CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, with music by Dengue Fever and others, premiered at South Coast Rep, with subsequent productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Victory Gardens, City Theatre, Merrimack Rep, and Signature Theatre. Her play THE GREAT LEAP has been produced at Denver Center, Seattle Rep, Atlantic Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Arts Club, InterAct Theatre, Steppenwolf, Pasadena Playhouse/East West Players, and Cygnet Theatre. Lauren Yee’s play KING OF THE YEES premiered at The Goodman Theatre and Center Theatre Group, followed by productions at ACT Theatre, Canada’s National Arts Centre, and Baltimore Center Stage. Other plays include CHING CHONG CHINAMAN (Pan Asian Rep, Mu Performing Arts), THE HATMAKER’S WIFE (Playwrights Realm, Moxie, PlayPenn), HOOKMAN (Encore, Company One), IN A WORD (Young Vic, SF Playhouse, Cleveland Public, Strawdog), SAMSARA (Victory Gardens), THE SONG OF SUMMER (Trinity Rep, Mixed Blood), and THE TIGER AMONG US (Mu). She is the winner of the Doris Duke Artist Award, the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Horton Foote Prize, the Kesselring Prize, the ATCA/Steinberg Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters literature award, and the Francesca Primus Prize. She has been a finalist for the Edward M. Kennedy Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her plays were the #1 and #2 plays on the 2017 Kilroys List. Lauren is a Residency 5 playwright at Signature Theatre, New Dramatists member (class of 2025), Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab member, former Princeton University Hodder fellow, and Playwrights Realm alumni playwright. Current commissions include Arena Stage, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, Second Stage, South Coast Rep. She has been a writer on PACHINKO (Apple TV+), SOUNDTRACK (Netflix), and a soon-to-be announced upcoming FX limited series. She is executive producing the adaptation of Anthony Veasna So’s AFTERPARTIES for television. She is currently developing new work for Apple TV+ and Netflix. BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD. www.laurenyee.com
David Henry Hwang’s stage work includes the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Aida, Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. His screenplays include M. Butterfly and he is currently penning the live-action feature musical remake of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as an Anna May Wong biopic to star actress Gemma Chan. For television, he was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair and is now creating two television series, Billion Dollar Whale for Westward/SKG and another for Netflix. Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist, he has written thirteen libretti, including five with composer Philip Glass. He also co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop music icon Prince.
Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, a Grammy Award winner who has been twice nominated, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. A professor at Columbia University School of the Arts, Hwang is a Trustee of the American Theatre Wing, where he served as Chair, and sits on the Council of the Dramatist Guild. Recent honors include his 2022 induction onto the Lucille Lortel Playwrights’ Sidewalk and his 2021 induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His newest musical, Soft Power, a collaboration with composer Jeanine Tesori, opened in New York at the Public Theatre, where it received a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theatre Album and was a Finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
In 2016, The David Henry Hwang Society was founded by William C. Boles (Rollins College), Martha Johnson (University of Minnesota), and Esther Kim Lee (University of Maryland). The DHH Society is devoted to the scholarly examination of plays by David Henry Hwang.
Meet The Artists
Patricia Santos is a singing cellist (or vocellist) and songwriter of varied musical styles. She draws on
her classical training to meld the cello with non-classical styles and explorative techniques. Her own songs range from blues to rock to folk and art-pop, and her covers feature unexpected styles. Lucid Culture called her a "dark, diverse cello rocker", and Vance Gilbert describes her “as if Nina Simone and Yo-Yo Ma had a kid.” Her debut EP "Never Like You Think" was listed on New York Music Daily's Top 50 NYC Albums of 2015. Patricia has worked with artists such as Hurray for the Riff Raff, Martha Redbone, Valerie Simpson, Charming Disaster, The Orange Peels, and Katreese Barnes. She is a teaching artist for Musicambia, bringing music instruction to incarcerated communities, serves on the Board of Directors of the New Directions Cello Festival, and is the proud daughter of immigrants.
Susan Hwang tells stories and makes things that are collapsible, like songs and times. Her instruments take up space (accordion, Janggu—traditional Korean drum, piano) but other physical objects she can’t play, wear or eat intimidate her. She founded, curates and hosts The Bushwick Book Club – a monthly live performance series and podcast presenting new work by local musicians, artists and chefs inspired by literature. Susan plays accordions because they are pretty and lighter than pianos (barely). She plays drums because it's healthy for a girl to hit things.
IG: @soozee3 , FB: @susanhwanglalala , YouTube: @soojiya
St. Lenox is the music project of Andrew Choi. AllMusic notes that Choi’s “creative pursuits have resulted in some of the most unique and unconventionally thrilling pop music in the late 2010s.” His debut, Ten Songs About Memory and Hope, received critical acclaim from NPR, NOISEY and CMJ, with NOISEY editor-in-chief calling the single “Bitter Pill” one of the 10 Best Songs of 2015. Follow up, Ten Hymns From My American Gothic, received one of the highest Metacritic ratings for a new release in 2016, and was called one of 14 Criminally Underrated Records of 2016 by Salon. Single “Thurgood Marshall” appeared on Best Songs of the Week lists at Consequence of Sound and Vulture, and is referenced as part of the pop culture history of the late Supreme Court justice in Time Magazine. Stereogum calls Choi’s voice “one of the most striking instruments in music today.” His third album, Ten Fables of Young Ambition and Passionate Love, was ranked #43 on PopMatters Best Albums of 2018 list, and was listed on AllMusic’s Best Indie Pop and Indie Rock Albums of 2018.
In 2021, after the release of Ten Songs of Worship and Praise for Our Tumultuous Times, St. Lenox was named an Artist You Need to Know by Rolling Stone, who profiled Choi, noting his “sharply evocative and richly imagined tales that … form part of Choi’s larger artistic project of expanding the definition of what gets to be considered an American narrative in the singer-songwriter tradition.” MTV News also praised the record, observing that “[s]hades of Stephin Merritt and John Darnielle abound … but Choi is also his own kind of performer – muscly, not showy, economical, and completely unforgettable.”
Sung aka Uni is a multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted artist who warrants multiple names/identities. Her mission is to engage intimately through audience participation to shed light on aspects of ourselves that need healing. She has performed with Bushwick Book in a variety of Brooklyn venues, Porch Stomp, The Public Theatre, and on television as a contestant on the Food Network.
IG: @13moonsfood
Shigeko Sara Suga (Dancer): has been performing in over 140 theatrical productions since 1986 locally and internationally with Ellen Stewart's Great Jones Repertory, Tisa Chang's Pan Asian Repertory and Virlana Tkacz's Yara Arts Group among others. She studied Flamenco originally from Maria Alba and is currently studying withSonia Olla and Ismael Fernandez. Shigeko recently appeared as Featured Dancer in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Metropolitan Opera House. http://www.shigekosuga.com Shigeko Sara Suga (Dancer): has been performing in over 140 theatrical productions since 1986 locally and internationally with Ellen Stewart's Great Jones Repertory, Tisa Chang's Pan Asian Repertory and Virlana Tkacz's Yara Arts Group among others. She studied Flamenco originally from Maria Alba and is currently studying with Sonia Olla and Ismael Fernandez. Shigeko recently appeared as Featured Dancer in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Metropolitan Opera House.
A freedom singer from the South Bronx by way of shaolin, spiritchild uses the arts to cultivate a cultural revolution throughout the world, from the United States to Europe, from Africa to South East Asia. This artist’s eclectic and experimental fusion of true school Hip Hop, funk, electronica and jazz continues to break the boundaries of the music scene. As spirit channels the frequencies of J Dilla having tea with Sun Ra, painting the silhouettes of Nina Simone remixing El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz also known as Malcolm X, no one shares the time and the space without being moved in body, mind, heart and soul.
spirit integrates revolution and hip hop culture throughout all his endeavors, as a musician, DJ/ soul selector, producer, facilitator and mxntor for youth, organizer and co founder along with Fred Ho of a new black arts movement which laid the foundation and groundwork for today’s maroon party for liberation and maroon liberation school.
Linktree: @xspiritmental