Yangtze Repertory Theatre Announces PROJECT YZ, New $10K AAPI Artist Residency Program
The inaugural recipients, who will each receive $10,000 in support over one year, are director Rui Dun and playwrights Yilong Liu and Minghao Tu.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jun. 29, 2022
Yangtze Repertory Theatre has announced Project YZ, a new AAPI Artist Residency program that supports the development of original projects by and about people from the AAPI immigrant and Asian diaspora communities. The inaugural recipients, who will each receive $10,000 in support over one year, are director Rui Dun and playwrights Yilong Liu and Minghao Tu.
Project YZ aims to uplift the voices of AAPI creators and shine a light on the AAPI community. In addition to $10,000 in direct support, the one-year residency program will offer professional development, research opportunities, and a one-week workshop.
Chongren Fan, Artistic Director of Yangtze Rep, remarks: "Project YZ is a new initiative aiming to support AAPI immigrant artists both financially and artistically. We are excited to create room for culturally sensitive ideas and stories that are rarely told in mainstream American theatre."
Director Rui Dun comments: "On behalf of my team of Wǔ Wèi, I'm thrilled to receive 'Project YZ' Residency. The space to tell stories allows us that have been hurt by the current condition of the world, to simply take a deep breath. So we want to take this opportunity to find healing in food from our culture and families. Through Wǔ Wèi, the five flavors of Chinese food therapy, we will explore the sweetness, tartness, bitterness, pungency, and saltiness of the AAPI experience in America."
Playwright Yilong Liu says: "Yangtze Rep has always been a passionate advocate for intersectional and international theatre artists. I'm looking forward to building community through this unique residency as I develop a full-length project about food psychics inspired by classical Chinese ghost stories."
Playwright Minghao Tu remarks: "Project YZ is such a gift for Asian immigrant writers. With support from this community, I will work on my play about a group of Chinese factory workers facing layoffs during China's economic reform. I look forward to collaborating with other transcultural artists."
Details about 2023-2024 Project YZ will be announced in the Spring of 2023.
Please visit https://www.yzrep.org/ for more information.
About the Artists
Rui Dun is a bicoastal stage director based in Oregon and New York. Originally from China, she has found her voice in migration stories. She has collaborated with artists from China, Turkey, England, United States to create work that speaks to cross-cultural experiences. In New York, her work has been seen at 3-Legged Dog, The Tank, Hudson Guild Theatre, New Ohio Theatre, UNFIX NYC, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, NY Fringe, and New York Theatre Festival. Credits include The Author's Voice (3LD), The Feast (3LD), Anne Frank Lives! (Hudson Guild Theater), SHINKA (assistant director, PCTF), If Women Rose Rooted (The Tank), June Is The First Fall (assistant director, New Ohio Theatre).
Yilong Liu is a Lambda Literary Award winning playwright based in New York. He is a 2022-2023 Lila Acheson Wallace American playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School. Yilong grew up in China and received his MFA from University of Hawai'i. He is a Core Writer at Playwrights' Center and has developed work with Ojai Playwrights Conference, EST/Youngblood, Kennedy Center, Space on Ryder Farm, among others. Other awards include Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award. Currently, he is under commissions from Audible's Emerging Playwrights Fund and EST/Sloan Project. Plays include The Book of Mountains and Seas (Lambda Literary Award for Drama), June is The First Fall (Yangtze Rep, Original Works Publishing), Joker (Po'okela Award, Kumu Kahua Theatre), Flood in The Valley, a Bilingual Folk Musical (Beijing Tianqiao Theatre Center, Gung Ho Project), PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute (NCTC), and Good Enemy (Audible, Ojai Playwrights Festival).
Minghao Tu is a playwright from Wuhan, China. He is currently a 2050 Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Van Lier Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, and a 2022/23 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights' Center. He has been a resident playwright of Pipeline Theatre Company's 2020/2021 PlayLab, and a 2021 Travis Bogard Artist-in-Residence at the Eugene O'Neill Foundation. His works have been presented/produced at Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America, Tofte Lake Center, Voyage Theater Company, New York Public Library, Ground Floor Theatre, and UT New Theatre; featured on The Steppenwolf Theatre's The Mix; Finalists: the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and the 2021 Woodward/Newman Award at the Bloomington Playwrights Project; Semifinalists: PlayPenn, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, and Shakespeare's New Contemporaries at American Shakespeare Center. He has been a Jame A. Michener fellow at UT Austin (MFA: 2020).
About Yangtze Repertory Theatre
For over 30 years, Yangtze Repertory Theatre (Chongren Fan, Artistic Director; Sally Shen, Executive Director) has been producing and presenting theatrical works in the Greater New York area. Yangtze Rep celebrates artists who are global citizens and provides a platform to showcase their talents. Their past and present productions have served as an entry point for their audience, regardless of their cultural upbringing, to see the world through a contemporary Chinese lens. www.yzrep.org
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