Oakland Theater Project Presents West Coast Premiere Of ENDLINGS

Oakland Theater Project will present the West Coast Premiere of Endlings by Celine Song, directed by May Liang (Artistic Director, Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company) from April 8-May 1 at OTP's theater at FLAX art & design (1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland CA 94612).

Endlings (a finalist for the 2020 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, selected for the 2018 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and included on the 2017 Kilroys list) begins on the remote island of Man-Jae, Korea, where three elderly women spend their dying days free diving into the ocean to harvest seafood. These haenyeos - "sea women"- are the last practitioners of their millennium-old tradition. Meanwhile, on the island of Manhattan, a Korean-Canadian playwright navigates external expectations of how her own identity intersects with the stories she tells. In a reflection of the relationship between narrative and identity that is at once whimsical, poetic, surprising and satirical, Song's play reveals how the stories we tell can obscure entire peoples, and asks: how are we to remove ourselves from an entrapping culture while we simultaneously perpetuate it for our own self-interest?

To direct Endlings, OTP is delighted to welcome back Ferocious Lotus Artistic Director May Liang, who worked with the company as Assistant Director on its 2015 production of Marcus Gardley's Dance of the Holy Ghosts. The cast includes Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, OTP Company Member Mia Tagano, Pauli N. Amornkul, Joyce Domanico-Huh, and Adam KuveNiemann.

"I'm super excited about the intergenerational story this brings to the stage," said director May Liang. "A show centered around three Asian women elders is something we just don't see-it's a part of our community that is often ignored. And the fact that the women in this play are so whole, so spunky-they cuss, egg each other on, tell jokes. They talk about sex, their husbands, their relationships with other women, their children-it's so refreshing. This play also feels prescient because it focuses on a group of people that have recently been more vulnerable to attacks in our society. I hope people come away with a respect, understanding and empathy for the culture, and for all the women portrayed in this story."

Endlings is the second of six productions in Oakland Theater Project's 10th Anniversary 2022 Season, "The Eye of the Storm: Meaning vs. Power," an exploration of hope, meaning, and transformation.

"We are thrilled to produce the west coast premiere of Endlings," said Co-Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran. "This play is one of a kind in terms of both its subject matter and its form. And as it relates to our season theme of 'Meaning vs. Power' this play takes a gentle, playful and humorous tone while tackling the dark theme of erasure in our world. Celine Song's play asks us how we are to create meaning when the mechanism by which we create meaning, our stories, are being erased."

Oakland Theater Project is continuing its investment on accessibility and safety and is offering every production with a livestream and video on demand option. Audiences can watch the livestream performance on Saturday, April 23rd at 7:30pm or on demand from April 24th to May 15th.

Tickets: $10-52 online; tickets at oaklandtheaterproject.org/endlings or by calling 510.646.1126.

Livestream tickets: $15-35 online; tickets at oaklandtheaterproject.org/endlings

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