Live & In Color's Fall Retreat To Develop Esmé Maria Ng's I KNOW WHY IRIS CHANG DIED And New Musical ZOMBIES, INC.

Live & In Color returns to Salem, CT this September to celebrate its 10th season of developing new and inclusive theatre. Live & In Color is a theatrical program during which artists spend time in a rural retreat setting creating work that gives voice to underrepresented communities onstage in the inspiring setting of the Bingham Camp.

Under the June Bingham New Playwright Commission, Live & In Color will develop the newly commissioned play "i know why iris chang died" by Esmé Maria Ng. The reading will be directed by Chaesong Kim. The play features Piggy Chen as April and Che'Li as May.

This commission opportunity honors the late June Bingham and provides resources and support toward the creation and development of a new play by early-career women/femme and/or non-binary storytellers. The play follows graphic novelist May and her twin sister April as May grapples with depression and attempts to create her magnum opus - a graphic memoir detailing their family's experience during the Rape of Nanking. A story about grief, remembrance, and art-making in the face of destruction, the piece explores what it means to survive and what it means to live.

Esmé Maria Ng is a Gaysian-American playwright/dramaturg/producer. Esmé is a 2023 Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, a 2024 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist, and a 2024 Premiere Play Festival Semi-Finalist. Esmé has held literary, artistic, and producing positions at Manhattan Theatre Club, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Breaking the Binary Theatre, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and Classic Stage Company. They are currently a Tank Producers Cohort Fellow, a 2024 CIPA Fellow, and a freelance writer/dramaturg with bylines in American Theatre Magazine. A selection of Esmé's plays are available to read on New Play Exchange.

The musical to be developed at this year's retreat is "ZOMBIES, INC." by Marcus Perkins Bejarano and Kim Jinhyoung. The piece will be directed by Live & In Color's Artistic Director Devanand Janki with Music Direction by Andrew Wheeler and will feature Ryo Kamibayashi. "ZOMBIES, INC." follows a down-on-his-luck accountant stuck in his office at 30 Rock during a worldwide zombie outbreak (a fate he considers to be "almost as bad as tax season"). When he finally gets sick of living in "survival mode" - a state that has plagued him his entire life - he decides to de-zombify himself and find out what it truly means to be alive.

Kim Jinhyoung is a storyteller who has co-written book, music, and lyrics for TWO NIGHTS & THREE DAYS (O'Neill NMTC Selection), SIDE-HUSTLE (JMF Goodspeed Writers Colony), and REFRESH (Without Walls Festival), which was produced as part of HALL PASS by Blindspot Collective in collaboration with La Jolla Playhouse; written book and music and co-written lyrics for WAIT...ING (O'Neill NMTC Semifinalist); and written music for WHERE IS JESUS' DICK (Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture residency), SHH-MAN (Seoul Youth Art Institute residency), and WONDERHUMAN (Seoul, South Korea). Kim has also written music and lyrics for the short film THE HUMAN ("Best Musical" at the New York International Film Awards), contributed music and lyrics to the virtual musical THIS GOLDEN DAY (Live & In Color), and co-written songs featuring characters from the video game GENSHIN IMPACT that have garnered over 20 million YouTube views to date (HoYoFair). Kim is a graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Marcus Perkins Bejarano is a Bolivian-American storyteller from Dallas, Texas, whois currently based in New York City. He has co-written book, music, and lyrics for TWO NIGHTS & THREE DAYS (O'Neill NMTC Selection), SIDE-HUSTLE (JMF Goodspeed Writers Colony), and REFRESH (Without Walls Festival), which was produced as part of HALL PASS by Blindspot Collective in collaboration with La Jolla Playhouse; co-written book and lyrics for WAIT...ING (O'Neill NMTC Semifinalist); contributed music and lyrics to the virtual musical THIS GOLDEN DAY (Live & In Color); and co-written songs featuring characters from the video game GENSHIN IMPACT that have garnered over 20 million YouTube views to date (HoYoFair). As a TV comedy writer, Marcus has placed as a Finalist in the Nickelodeon Writing Program and a Semifinalist in the NBC TV Writers Program and the Austin Film Festival. A graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, he also has degrees from Princeton University and Stanford Law School.

"i know why iris chang died" will be presented on September 6th, at 7:00 p.m. Staged readings of "ZOMBIES, INC " will be presented on September 7th at 3:00 p.m. and 8th at 2:00 p.m. Both pieces will be presented at The Bingham Camp (490 East Haddam Road, Salem, CT 06420) and are free and open to the public. Seating is very limited, so please reserve a ticket in advance at liveandincolor.org.

Live & In Color's Fall Retreat will be held from September 3rd - 8th at the Bingham Camp in Salem, CT.

Live & In Color was founded by Artistic Director, Devanand Janki, whose career spans all facets of the performing arts - theatre, opera, ballet, and corporate entertainment. Janki began as a performer, appearing in numerous productions, including Broadway's "Miss Saigon," "Cats," "The King and I," and "Side Show." For the past 15 years, he has been a freelance director, working regionally and in New York on over 50 shows, including "Aladdin," "Junie B. Jones," "Man of La Mancha," "Rent," "The Full Monty" and Off-Broadway's "Zanna Don't" for which he won the Lucille Lortel Award.

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