The award-winning, nationally-renowned Ma-Yi Theater Company – one of the country’s leading producers of new works for the stage by Asian-American writers – will continue its 2014-15 season this spring with the world premiere of SOLDIER X by Rehana Lew Mirza, with preview performances set to begin March 24 prior to an official opening night on March 31 at the HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, enter on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring) in NYC.SOLDIER X is directed by Lucie Tiberghien.
SOLDIER X follows a young African American military social worker, Monica, who falls for a returning soldier, Jay, and the subsequent love triangle that ensues when he decides he is in love with his fallen comrade’s Muslim sister. The play tallies the emotional scars inflicted on our young men and women returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. How exactly do you rejoin a society that remains as conflicted about its wars as it is with issues of race and gender?
Featured in the cast of SOLDIER X are Kaliswa Brewster, Cleo Gray, Jared McNeil, Turna Mete and Carolyn Michelle Smith Downey. Set design is by Daniel Conway; costume design is by Beth Goldenberg; lighting design is by Peter West; and sound design is by Broken Chord.
Rehana Lew Mirza is the author of the plays LONELY LEELA, presented by the Asian American Theater Company; A DISTANT RELATION; PARTICLES OF PAKISTAN for Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Sloan Commission; and IF IT’S SAD I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT at Queens Theater in the Park. Her plays have been published with Alexander Street Press, indietheaternow and New York Theatre Review. She is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, having served as its co-director for two years.
Lucie Tiberghien has directed the world premiere of ASHES UNDER THE GAIT CITY for Contemporary American Theater Festival, the world premiere of Charles Randolph Wright’sLOVE IN AFGHANISTAN at Arena Stage, WATER BY THE SPOONFUL at Arden Theater Company and the world premiere of DON’T GO GENTLE by Stephen Belber at MCC. She directed the world premiere of Katori Hall’s HOODOO LOVE at Cherry Lane Theatre and AUGUSTA by Richard Dresser at CATF). She recently joined the team of Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s new musical TWO ZERO ZERO TWO for Studio Theatre in Washington, DC.
SOLDIER X will run March 24 through April 19: Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8:30 pm and Sundays at 4 pm. Tickets are $25 during previews; regularly $30; seniors and guaranteed student tickets are $15. For reservations log on to www.here.org or call 212 352 3101.
SOLDIER X is part of SubletSeries@HERE, HERE’s curated rental program which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment as well as technical support.
MA-YI THEATER COMPANY – which recently enjoyed great critical and popular success with its double-bill this fall of LIVIN’ LA VIDA IMELDA and CHAIRS AND A LONG TABLE on Theater Row – won the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for its critically-acclaimed production ofTHE WONG KIDS IN THE SECRET OF THE SPACE CHUPACABRA GO! last season. Founded in 1989 and now celebrating its 26th anniversary season, MA-YI is a Drama Desk and OBIE Award-winning, Off-Broadway not-for-profit organization whose primary mission is to develop and produce new and innovative plays by Asian American writers. It is currently led by Ralph B. Peña (Artistic Director) and Jorge Z. Ortoll (Executive Director). Since its founding, Ma-Yi has distinguished itself as one of the country’s leading incubators of new work shaping the national discourse about what it means to be Asian American today. Its numerous acclaimed productions include last season’s BIKE AMERICA, JESUS IN INDIA, Qui Nguyen’s THE INEXPLICABLE REDEMPTION OF AGENT G and SOUL SAMURAI (with Vampire Cowboys), Mike Lew’s MICROCRISIS and the revival of Ralph B. Peña’s FLIPZOIDS. Other productions include: RESCUE ME by Michi Barall, Lloyd Suh’s AMERICAN HWANGAP and THE CHILDREN OF VONDERLY and THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO. Through successful programs such as the Writers Lab, Ma-Yi emboldens a new generation of Asian American artists to voice their experiences, while developing a steady stream of quality new works by Asian American playwrights for its own performing repertory. New works developed at the Writers Lab have gone on to successful productions around the country, at such theaters as Victory Gardens, Laguna Playhouse, Long Wharf Theater, Woolly Mammoth, and the Actors Theater of Louisville, to name a few. Ma-Yi Theater Company productions have earned 10 OBIE Awards, numerous Henry Hewes Award nominations, a Drama Desk nomination for Best Play and the Special Drama Desk Award for “more than two decades of excellence and for nurturing Asian-American voices in stylistically varied and engaging theater.”
Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia starred as Carole Barbara in Lorey Hayes’ Power Play at the 2013 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., with Pauletta Pearson Washington, Roscoe Orman. She is profiled in Jade Magazine.
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Crafting a Career
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