Chinese-American Composer Daniel Walker's New Rock Musical QING CHENG/DARK CITY to Hit NYMF

Chinese-American composer Daniel Walker's spellbinding new rock musical "Qing Cheng/Dark City," about the refugee experience in China, breaks free at this summer's NY Musical Theatre Festival.

A modern fable seen through the eyes of a rootless young girl who finds sanctuary in a dangerous ghetto outside of Hong Kong, "Qing Cheng/Dark City" is directed by Kirsten Sanderson and produced by Sabrina Zuo.

First seen in a staged reading in Pasadena in 2015, the musical's East Coast debut performs at The Green Room 42, in Yotel, 570 10th Avenue, on Thursday July 20 at 7pm; Friday July 21 at 1pm, and Saturday July 22, at 5pm. For tickets and information visit www.nymf.org.

Set in a city-within-a-city modeled after the legendary Kowloon Walled City, the musical tells the story of Ahn, a penniless young refugee who finds safety, love and even hope amid the poverty and chaos around her. A mostly anarchist warren of tight-knit, ramshackle dwellings that housed as many as 33,000 people until it was razed after the transfer from the British of Hong Kong to Chinese control, Kowloon persists in the popular Chinese imagination as a place of mythic beauty and danger. It is now the site of a sprawling park in modern-day Hong Kong.

A pre-eminent contemporary-classical composer based in Pasadena, Walker has extensive commissions internationally. His ballet, "Marco Polo: The Last Mission" was premiered by the Shanghai Ballet as part of the opening festival of China's World Expo in 2010, and is part of the company's permanent repertoire. His five-movement "See Without Looking" was commissioned by the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra in 2016, and received its US premiere at the New England Conservatory in March of this year. Dean of the music department of the Cornel School of Contemporary Music in Los Angeles, Walker's compositions can also be heard in film and on television: Here on HBO, NBC, ABC, PBS; in Europe (Bavaria Films), and in Asia where his theme songs for "Curiosity Kills the Cat" and the hit Japanese anime series "The Galaxy Railways" are well-known.

Director Sanderson is best known for her collaborations with Michael John LaChiusa at The Public ("First Lady Suite," and "First Daughter Suite"); at Playwrights Horizons ("Lucky Nurse"), and at the Blank Theater in Hollywood ("Little Fish and Sukie and Sue"). She has been a resident director at New Dramatists; director of The Ensemble Studio Theatre's National Theatre Colony, and she has taught at Playwright's Horizon's Theatre School; NYU; AMDA in L.A., and the Eugene O'Neil Center's National Theatre Institute.

Producer Sabrina Zuo is a well-known Chinese-American radio personality on the West Coast who is heard three-times a week on her Mandarin-language radio program, heard in Los Angeles and Pasadena. Formerly a vice president of the American International Cultural Exchange Foundation, she actively promotes Chinese culture in the US, having produced numerous events in the Los Angeles area, including the China National Acrobatic Troupe; CCTV's Same Song tour; China National Opera & Dance Theater; Nan Ning Art Theater; The China Central Orchestra, and many others.

Daniel Walker's rock musical song-cycle "Qing Cheng/Dark City," featuring a cast of six actors and six musicians, performs as follows: Thursday July 20 at 7pm; Friday July 21 at 1pm, and Saturday July 22, at 5pm, at The Green Room 42, in Yotel, 570 10th Avenue. (Running time is 1:45) Tickets, which are $27.50, are available at www.nymf.org.