Center Stage Hosts KING OF THE YEES Reading This Weekend

Center Stage will host a workshop of a new play about Chinese-American culture from today, Nov. 21 to the 23rd at the theater.

King of the Yees, by Lauren Yee, is the first Play Lab of Center Stage's 2014/15 Season. King of the Yees is about the playwright's father's story developing the Yee Family Association men's club. Each year, Center Stage invites playwrights to develop new works with actors over three days, and with feedback from audiences. Yee was a featured playwright in Center Stage's My America project, which invited 50 playwrights from across the country to answer the question "What is my America?"

"King of the Yees is my attempt to cram everything I love and less than love about Chinese-American culture into a play," says Yee. "It's also an ode to my father and the difficulty of passing down stories you never truly had a firm handle on. It's about the communities we choose and the ones we inherit, and the inherent difficulties in navigating those fields."

Play Lab: King of the Yees
By Lauren Yee
$10 | $5 for Members
5th floor Jay Andrus Rehearsal Hall
Fri, Nov 21 at 8 pm - BUY NOW
Sat, Nov 22* at 8 pm - BUY NOW
Sun, Nov 23 at 2 pm - BUY NOW

*There will also be a free open rehearsal at 2:30 pm on Saturday, November 22. Patrons interested in attending should contact the Box Office at rsvp@centerstage.org. Please arrive 10-15 minutes prior to the start time.

Lauren Yee's plays include Ching Chong Chinaman (Pan Asian, Mu Performing Arts, SIS Productions, Impact Theatre), Crevice (Impact Theatre), The Hatmaker's Wife (Playwrights Realm, The Hub, Moxie Theatre, AlterTheater, PlayPenn), Hookman (Company One workshop), in a word (Hangar and Williamstown workshops), King of the Yees (Goodman Theatre commission), Samsara (O'Neill Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Victory Gardens' IGNITION Festival), and The Tiger Among Us (MAP Fund, Mu Performing Arts). Upcoming productions in the 2014/15 season at Victory Gardens, San Francisco Playhouse, the Cleveland Public Theatre, Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company, and Encore Theatre. Work developed at Lincoln Center/LCT3, Goodman Theatre, Magic Theatre, The Public, Rattlestick, and Kitchen Dog. Former Dramatists Guild fellow, MacDowell fellow, and Public Theater Emerging Writers Group member. Fellowships: Women's Project Lab, Ma-Yi Writers' Lab, Playwrights Realm Page One residency, Playwrights' Center Core Writer. Commissions: Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center/LCT3, Mixed Blood, Encore Theatre, and TheatreworksUSA. BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD. laurenyee.com.

Associate Artistic Director/Director of Dramaturgy Gavin Witt came to Center Stage in 2003, after nearly15 years in Chicago as an actor, dramaturg, director, translator, and teacher. Before making his Center Stage full production directorial debut with Twelfth Night, Gavin directed more than a dozen Young Playwrights Festival entries and the 50th Anniversary Decade Plays. In the First Look and Play Lab series, he has directed new play readings of such contemporary playwrights as Caridad Svich, Chiori Miyagawa, Abi Basch, Jason Grote, Allison Moore, and Kirsten Greenidge. Previously, he directed his Jeff-nominated adaptation of Pericles, as well as several other Shakespeare plays. Other Chicago directing credits include Ostrovsky's A Family Affair, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Kaughman and Hart's You Can't Take It with You, and a number of projects for the Chicago Humanities Fes

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