Pan Asian Repertory Theatre to Present NuWORKS 2023 Featuring New Work by Asian-American Artists

Pan Asian Repertory Theatre will present NuWorks 2023, the annual experimental series of self-created work from innovative and diverse artists exploring an eclectic range of genres and techniques using poetry, text, dance, and music. Featuring new works by diverse artists Sora Baek, Jan Barry & Jenny Pacanowski, AJ Layague, Sanhawich Meateanuwat, Lyra Nalan, Sai Somboon, Cody LeRoy Wilson, Mandarin Wu & Da Xu.

Performances begin in repertory Saturday, June 3, 2023, at 7:00PM and will conclude on Sunday afternoon June 11, 2023, at 3:00PM at Theatre 1 at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street).

General Admission tickets are priced at $27.50 and available at https://bfany.org/theatre-row/shows/nuworks-2023/ For additional information, please email info@panasianrep.org or visit the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre website at https://www.panasianrep.org/nuworks2023.

NuWORKS 2023
Schedule of Events

PROGRAM A

Premieres Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 7:00PM
Second performance Friday, June 9, 2022 at 7:00PM

Dream Reunion

Written by Lyra Nalan
Starring Genevive Shi and Stephanie Gong
Directed by Nina Lam

Ting, a Chinese woman living in America, runs over various possibilities of her reunion with her mother back home, hoping to find the right words that lead to a perfect scenario.

Lyra Nalan is a bilingual Chinese writer based in New York. She is the Judith Royer Award-winning playwright for the play Paper Dream and has been nominated for the Susan Blackburn Smith Prize and the Smith Prize for Political Theatre. Her work has been showcased at the Kennedy Center, Cherry Lane Theatre, Round House Theatre, Spooky Action Theatre, Miranda Theatre, Avant Bard Theatre, Tradewind Arts Asian American Artists, Strand Theatre, Three Cats Productions, and Adventure Theatre MTC. Lyra is currently working on a commission for Silk Road Rising theatre. She's very honored and thrilled to be a part of Pan Asian Rep's NuWork Festival! EDUCATION: Northwestern University: MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage. WEBSITE: Lyranalan.com.

✶

SELL ME: I Am From North Korea

Written and performed by Sora Baek

On her 15th birthday, a North Korean girl, Jisun makes the heart-wrenching decision to sell herself to an old Chinese man to make money for ger dying mother’s medications. However, after risking everything by crossing the Tumen River into China, she learns that she is not-sellable and finds herself on the streets.

Sora Baek (Writer/Performer) is grateful to Pan Asian Rep and Tisa for this wonderful opportunity to share her work. Sora is a New York-based actor and playwright from South Korea. She has been featured on News 12 NJ and the international Radio Show, Voice of America. Select theater credits include: SELL ME: I am from North Korea (International Human Rights Festival, Emerson Theater Collaborative, Jersey City Theater Center), The Storm, A Christmas Carol, 400 Parts Per Million, and Sworn Virgin (NYC and International Tour) with Blessed Unrest, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Calaveras Repertory Theatre). Sora won Best Actress at the Epidemic Film Festival in San Francisco. She also won Best Lead Performer at the U.K’s Scene Saver and her play was nominated for Best Play. She works with Only Make Believe where she performs interactive theater with children in hospitals and is an associate member of an internationally acclaimed theater company, Blessed Unrest. www.sorabaek.com

✶✶✶

PROGRAM B
Premieres Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 3:00PM
Second performance Tuesday, June 8, 2023 at 7:00PM

A Sisyphean Dream

Written and Devised in Collaboration with Heen Sasithorn,
Vin Kridakorn and Pacha Chantri
Directed by Sanhawich Meateanuwat

A group of immigrant actors meets in a dream space to discuss their dreams as immigrant actors. Through challenges., self-doubts, and homesickness, they wonder if they made the RIGHT choice to travel across the world to pursue their dreams.

Sanhawich Meateanuwat (Playwright) recently moved to New York after graduating from the MFA Directing Program at Illinois State University. In Thailand, they worked as an instructor and resident director at Bangkok University, where they directed, adapted, and translated numerous plays. In 2022, they received the National SDC Directing Fellowship Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. They worked as a Directing Fellow at the National Playwrights Conference 2022 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. This year, they have been selected to be the part of The Drama League's Directors Project as Directing Assistantships cohort and the KCACTF/LORT ASPIRE Arts Leadership fellows. Website: Sanhawich.com

✶

Bridge Back Home From War

A Conversion through Poetry About the Impact of War
By Jan Barry and Jenny Pacanowski

After returning from the wars overseas, follow two veterans from different eras, different wars, navigate their experiences through an interactive writing workshop with the audience.

Jan Barry is a poet and author whose books include A Citizen's Guide to Grassroots Campaigns,Earth Songs, Life after War & Other Poems and (co-editor) Winning Hearts & Minds: War Poems byVietnam Veterans. A U.S. Army veteran of Vietnam, he coordinates Warrior Writers workshops forveterans and family members in New Jersey. For more information: www.janbarry.net

Jenny Pacanowski served in the Iraq war in 2004 as a combat medic in the Army. Her military service led her back to the arts, which includes writing and facilitating workshops for veterans, their families and providing guidance on how their communities can support them through theatre. Jenny and her organization, Women Veterans Empowered & Thriving do their best to assist veterans to reintegrate and thrive.

✶✶✶

PROGRAM C
Premieres Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 7:00PM
Second performance Saturday, June 10, 2023 at 7:00PM

Cowgirl Katarungan Is Fixin’ to Fight

Written by AJ Layague

Cowgirl Katarungan is a Filipinx-American truthteller/detective who recounts – and dismantles - four historical vignettes where racism, misogyny, and the eugenics movement took center stage. And she does it in verse.

AJ Layague - she/her (Playwright) immerses into stylized historical worlds which typically center the non-binary and/or people of color, instead of relegating them to side characters or ancillary roles. They steer their narratives and their movement in their worlds, even when these narratives and worlds are bleak and not completely within their control. And as an ethnomusicologist - I lived and studied music in Southeast Asia - I am most interested in how music-cultures and cultures can evolve, respond, and even thrive during colonization. And how they sound and re-sound post-colonization.

✶

Extraordinary Alien

Written and performed by Sai Somboon
Directed by Nana Dakin

A solo show based on Sai’s lived experience expressed through movement/dance, comedy, monologues, and video projections. A reflection on their intersectional identities as a gay, cisgender Thai man, a recently naturalized citizen of the United States, and an actor/dancer navigating the audition and performance landscape in New York.

Sai Samboon (Writer/Performer) is a comedian, actor and dancer from Bangkok, Thailand. Based out of New York City, Sai has performed in Sleep No More at the McKittrick Hotel, FringeNYC, Astoria Performing Arts Center, Fulton Theatre, Maltz Jupiter, Dallas Musicals, North Shore Music Theatre and Daegu Opera House in Daegu, South Korea. Sai holds a Bachelor of Art in Anthropology from Franklin & Marshall College, and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from The Ohio State University and he is finishing up the Master of Education program at Harvard University.

PROGRAM D
Premieres Wenesday, June 7, 2023 at 7:00PM
Second performance Sunday, June 11, 2023 at 3:00PM

Period.

Written and by Mandarin Wu and Da Xu
Performed by Mandarin Wu
Sound Design by Da Xu

A tragicomedy starring Handy Mandy, as she tap dances through the conflicts of being an aging Asian-American modern woman and actor, navigating through current social climate and regularly incapcitated by the periods in her life.

Mandarin Wu (Playwright/Performer) is a theatre performer singer/dancer/actor/choreographer/ director. Selective credits: “PLEASED” (Pan Asian Rep 2022 NuWorks), A Dream of Red Pavilions (Pan Asian Rep), Follies (APAC), Orfeo ed Euridice (Met Opera). Choreography for Theatre: Skin (Rattlestick), Romance of the Western Chamber (Wildly Productive), Eastbound (NYTB), Legally Blonde_ (National ChiaYi University of Taiwan). NYU Tisch Dance MFA, UC Irvine Dance BA. Musical Theatre faculty at Marymount Manhattan College.

Xa Du (Playwright/Sound Design) Credits: “PLEASED” (Pan Asian Rep 2022 NuWorks), The Brothers Paranormal (East WestPlayers), Uncovered(UCLA). With Los Angeles Movement Arts: Momentum, Catalyst (co-curator), and audio/visual movement works for LACMA's Art Walk. Live Visuals: Alienware Computers, LuLuLemon. Toured extensively with the seminal Chinese rock band 舌头(SheTou) as photographer and live visual collaborator. 2021 Westben International Performer-Composer Residency participant.

✶

Did My Grandfather Kill My Grandfather?

Written and performed by Cody LeRoy Wilson

A journey to find out what it means to be Asian-American, the piece follows Cody’s mother’s immigration story. Cody investigates their family’s story and gain new perspectives on the meaning of family roots and their Asian Decent.

Cody LeRoy Wilson (Playwright/Performer) makes his Pan Asian Rep debut at Theatre Row and he is beyond grateful for the opportunity. Other NYC credits include Off Broadway: Handbagged (59E59), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titus Andronicus with NYSX and Prisoners of Qual Dong at Prism Stage. Regional: Book of Will, Handbagged, and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time at Roundhouse Theater, As You Like It at The Folger, Measure For Measure, As You Like It, So Please You at Hudson Valley Shakespeare, and Miss Saigon at Missouri Playhouse. TV/Film: “Russian Doll,” “Impractical Jokers,” “Hello Tomorrow!,” and Money Monster.

For additional information, please visit the website at http://www.panasianrep.org/nuworks-2023.

Pan Asian Repertory Theatre

celebrating its 46th Milestone Season, is the most veteran Asian American theatre company on the East Coast. Tisa Chang founded Pan Asian Rep in 1977 at Ellen Stewart’s La Mama ETC with the vision to promote equity and access that Asian Americans artists can equally follow, focusing on stories of probing social justice issues with distinctive Off-Broadway Productions, Tours, National Outreach, and Community Service. Mel Gussow of The New York Times described it as "A Stage for All the World of Asian–Americans” and wrote that “Before Pan Asian Rep, Asian Americans had severely limited opportunities in the theater....” The company has nurtured thousands of artists and is a “who-is-who” of Asian American theatre history, with notable alumni/ae: Ako, Ernest Abuba, Tina Chen, Philip Gotanda, Wai Ching Ho, David Henry Hwang, Daniel Dae Kim, Lucy Liu, Ron Nakahara, R.A. Shiomi, Lauren Yee, and Henry Yuk. 

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