Special event—a staged reading of Lauren Yee's Ching Chong Chinaman

Impact presents a reading of
Ching Chong Chinaman
a new play by Lauren Yee
directed by Dawn Monique Williams
Wednesday, May 28 7pm
La Val's Subterranean
$5 at the door / free with your 'Tis Pity ticket

Featuring Miyuki Bierlein, Lisa Kang, Arthur Keng,
Julie Kuwabara, James Lontayao, Wilton Yeung

Golfing tournaments, early admission to Princeton, and not a single rice cooker in the house. The Wongs are about as white as you can get. But when son Upton brings home his very own Chinese slave, will this drive them closer to the heritage or just drive them further into the American heartland? Ching Chong Chinaman is a modern-day comedy that chronicles the struggles of Asian Americans facing an increasingly sophisticated Asia.

About the play

After winning the 2007 Yale Playwrights Festival and Kumu Kahua Theatre's 2007 Pacific Rim Prize, Ching Chong Chinaman debuted at the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival to positive reviews. NYtheatre.com called Ching Chong Chinaman "too smart and funny to miss." The play received further development by Minneapolis' Theater Mu, through the Ford Foundation's Emerging Writers of Color fellowship. In June, it will receive a reading at the Guthrie Theatre, as part of the Asian American Theater Conference, and in 2009, it will premiere at Theater Mu.

About the playwright

Lauren Yee was a finalist for the 2008/09 Jerome Fellowship and the 2007 Heideman Award. She has received commissions from Minneapolis's Theater Mu, San Francisco's PlayGround, and New York's O'Neill Festival. Her work has also premiered in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and other cities. Locally, she has worked with Asian American Theater Company, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, Bindlestiff, City Lights Theatre, PlayGround, Three Wise Monkeys, and others. She is also PlayGround's 2008 June Anne Baker Prize winner and the recipient of a CA$H grant from Theatre Bay Area for the development of a new play on commercial surrogacy in India. This summer, Lauren will be writer-in-residence at the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony and the Edward F. Albee Foundation.