Theater J has announced the seven playwrights who have been selected for its Expanding the Canon initiative: Harley Elias, Zachariah Ezer, Carolivia Herron, Jesse Jae Hoon, M.J. Kang, Thaddeus McCants, and Kendell Pinkney.
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Playwrights Realm 2022-2023 Writing Fellowship
I am a 2022-2023 Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm, with my play Somebody is Looking Back At Me, directed once again by Miranda Cornell. Joining me as fellows are my good friend Alex Lin with LASTHUNTER, Andrea Ambam with Fragile State, and Alyssa Haddad-Chin with The Ancestry Dot Com Play. My friend Ankita Raturi will be part of the Scratchpad series with her play Nobody Plays Badminton in America.
Jesse Jae Hoon to Work in Partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company as Recipients of Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program
NEW YORK — Ma-Yi Theater Company is thrilled to announce a two-year residency for playwright Jesse Jae Hoon, supported by the Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) Artist Employment Program (AEP), a project of the Tides Center. A freshly minted graduate of Hunter College’s MFA Playwriting Program, Jesse will work on writing projects that combine his passion for social & economic justice activism and telling stories that center Asian American experiences. Ma-Yi Theater Company will receive funds to support the collaboration, including artists’ salaries and benefits.
Designed to support employment opportunities for artists, the program is funding 98 collaborations involving a dynamic group of 300 artists employed by community-based organizations, municipalities, and tribal governments across New York State. CRNY has awarded a total of $49.9M in funding to support artists’ salaries and benefits, with an additional $11.7M in funding provided to the organizations holding employment.
“If we are to truly rebuild our amazing state, we must celebrate artists’ contributions not only to the economy but to what makes us human,” says Creatives Rebuild New York's Executive Director Sarah Calderon. “The incredible work being funded through CRNY’s Artist Employment Program underscores the importance of direct support for both individual artists and the organizations that hold their employment.”
Artist Employment Program recipients were selected through a two-stage process by a group of twenty external peer reviewers alongside CRNY staff. From an initial pool of over 2,700 written applications, 167 were shortlisted for interviews with reviewers. To view the list of 98 Artist Employment Program participants, visit https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/participants/.
For more information about Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program, please visit creativesrebuildny.org.
Ma-Yi Theater Company was founded in 1989 for the production and development of new plays and performance work discussing and engaging with the Filipino American experience. In 1998, responding to the growing need for a developmental venue for Pan-Asian American texts, Ma-Yi expanded its mission to include works by Asian American playwrights of all ethnicities and origins. Its numerous acclaimed productions include Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady, Haruna Lee’s Suicide Forest, Mike Lew’s Teenage Dick, Qui Nguyen’s The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G, Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play, and Lonnie Carter’s The Romance of Magno Rubio. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ma-Yi pivoted to the creation and production of digital content from Asian American artists to keep members of the community employed – this endeavor was known as Ma-Yi Studios. Ma-Yi Theater Company’s works have won a total of 10 Obie Awards, 3 Lucille Lortel Awards, an Off-Broadway Alliance Award, a Richard Rodgers Award, a Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, numerous Henry Hewes Design Award nominations, and in May 2010, a special Drama Desk award for “more than two decades of excellence and for nurturing Asian American voices in stylistically varied and engaging theatre.” Ma-Yi Theater Company is currently under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Ralph B. Peña. For more information, visit Ma-YiTheatre.org.
JJH will take part in 2g & Ma-Yi Theater Company's SHORT STACK PLAY FEST
Jesse is one of ten playwrights involved in 2g’s Short Stack Play Fest, presented in association with Ma-Yi Theater Company. Also taking part are Christopher Chen, Dustin Chinn, Kimber Lee, Durra Leung, Alex Lin, Kate Rigg, Arif Silverman, Lloyd Suh, and Ran Xia, with direction from Miranda Cornell, Nana Dakin, Cara Hinh, Margaret Lee, and Ry Szelong.
JJH will be part of the Orchard Project's Inaugural Adaptation Lab →
Jesse Jae Hoon has been announced as one of the cohort members of the Orchard Project’s 2022 inaugural Adaptation Lab with his adaptation of Emily Guendelsberger’s On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did To Me and How It Drives America Insane. Excerpt from the BroadwayWorld report:
The Orchard Project (www.orchardproject.com) today announced its 2022 Lab programs as well as the names of participating artists and companies. The OP selected 38 projects or artistic teams from a competitive group of 1,417 applicants to participate in this year's programs. This year includes the official launch of a new Orchard Project Adaptation Lab - supporting innovative adaptation works in playwriting, performance art, and transmedia dramatic storytelling - as well as the continuation of the OP's existing labs supporting artists creating new work for theater, audio, and TV. The Orchard Project's Performance Lab will transition back to in-person work in Saratoga Springs, NY, while other labs will be hybrid and split between virtual and workshops in NYC and Los Angeles, allowing the Orchard Project to accelerate the work of innovative playwrights, screenwriters, and theater companies from a breadth of geographic locales while keeping staff and artists safe during the ongoing pandemic.
"The performing arts world has unfortunately lost some of its greatest resources devoted to supporting new artists, project development, and encouraging creative risk taking over the past two years. During this time, the Orchard Project has worked tirelessly to meet our artists' changing needs, and we are proud that - rather than shutting down or scaling back - we have actually increased our programs and are now supporting even more inventive artists and diverse voices. We are excited to embark on a year that mixes in-person residencies with hybrid labs - and we can't wait to see what this wonderful group of artists creates."
2022 ADAPTATION LAB
"This year's inaugural OP Adaptation Lab will focus on performance projects from an aesthetically diverse cohort of artists working in playwriting, technology, and transmedia storytelling. Through their distinct voices, this group of artists expands the definition of adaptation by reinventing, recontextualizing, and cross-pollinating existing source materials, dramatic and beyond. For us, these six projects are united by their rigorous and transgressive artistic interrogations, which are baked into every project on a conceptual level."
- Sam Max and Xiaoyue Zhang, Orchard Project Adaptation Lab Facilitators
JESSE JAE HOON, ON THE CLOCK: Adapted from journalist Emily Guendelsberger's gripping nonfiction account, On the Clock is a nonlinear nightmare that explores the unending mental torture of low-wage work in America.
ADAM KASSIM AND MONA KASRA, DREAMING IN EXILE: is an experimental adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters and Strindberg's A Dream Play through the lens of modern-day Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) immigrants, which will incorporate digital and immersive media.
SAM MAYER, poolboy3: the rat wife: poolboy00 is an obscure internet micro, micro celebrity. Ibsen is the father of realism. Both are fame hungry clout chasers with a terrible, explosive secret.
DAN O'BRIEN, BORGES AND ME: A stage adaptation of Jay Parini's acclaimed "novelistic memoir," Borges and Me takes us back fifty years, when Parini finds himself driving the famed Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges on a tour of the Highlands.
LIQING XU, SKINLESS: A re-imagination of the Chinese legend The White Snake as a queer gender-bending fairytale.
GARRETT ZUERCHER, PHILOCTETES: Performed in a hybrid of spoken English and American Sign Language, this adaptation of Sophocles is radically framed through the lens of Deaf culture to provoke dialogue about Disability politics and cultural appropriation.
This inaugural lab will be facilitated by Sam Max and Xiaoyue Zhang.
CHICKEN IS CONDEMNED TO BE FREE will premiere at Alleyway Theatre as part of the 31st Annual Buffalo Quickies
My short play, Chicken is Condemned To Be Free, will premiere at the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo from February 24 - March 19, 2022 as part of the 31st Annual Buffalo Quickies.
Directed by Chris J Handley
Sets/Lights by Emma Schimminger
Costumes/Props by Todd Warfield
Sound by Jake Nowak
Puppets by Adam Kreutinger
Participating in Fucked Up Play Festival
Fucked-Up Play Fest is a night of hot 10 minute plays by even hotter playwrights, all performed as a drinking game for the audience!
Featuring seven short comedies by Enzo Gattucio, Daniela Gonzalez y Perez, Jesse Jae Hoon, Chloé Hayat, Anna O'Connell, and Paige Esterly. Grab a drink at the bar and a program at the door for an original drinking game to go along with the show. Bring a friend, bring a date, bring your sense of humor, and bring cash to tip your bartender!
Doors 9:00 PM, show 9:30 PM.Tickets $15 in advance, $20 at the door, $10 livestream.
21+
No outside food or drink is allowed.
The House of Billy Paul | Developmental Reading
Hi all! Ma-Yi Theater Company is presenting a developmental reading of my play The House of Billy Paul on July 28, 2021 @ 1PM EST! We would love to see you there.
Directed by Charlotte Murray
Featuring Colin Barham, Marieta Carrero, ChiWen Chang, Ron Domingo, Joshua Josey, Alex Lin, Dawn Akemi Saito, Yeena Sung
Stage Manager Alisha Shrestha
Back with the 24 Hour Plays in June 2021! →
David Hull (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) will perform a monologue I wrote in 24 hours for The 24 Hour Plays’ 24 Viral Monologues! Tune in June 29 @ 6PM EST!
Joining the team of Primetime Theater Festival →
Primetime Theater is a live, virtual theatrical event featuring a series of short plays in the style of classic network sitcoms. I’ll be joining the writers room with Elise Wien and Megan Pope, and directed by Kathleen Capdesuñer to present a new “series” entitled Limited Service.
Welcome to the Communications Department of the MTA. Vernon, Jay, and Hoyt are here to help you, the rider - only they’re up against a shoestring budget, competing interests from state government, ~Digital Protection Pals~, Vloggers, Rogue Mosaic Layers, Lewd Buskers, and the Subway Worm. Can they overcome these enemies, and their own egos, to save a crumbling system?
Runs April 15-29.
Speaking at DanceNYC's "Arts and Cultural Workers for the New York Health Act" Town Hall
I’m speaking at a town hall on the New York Health Act, hosted by Dance Artists’ National Collective, in partnership with Dance/NYC, Abrons Arts Center, and League of Independent Theater.
Read MoreDONG XUAN CENTER will receive developmental reading at Ma-Yi Theater Company →
Ma-Yi Theater Company, the country’s leading theater company for Asian American playwrights, will present a developmental reading of Dong Xuan Center on October 5, 2020 @ 3PM EST over Zoom.
Directed by Charlotte Murray, and featuring Ben Beckley, Veronica Dang, Lynn Kim Do, Dinh James Doan, Nik Duggan, David Huynh, and Michelle Vo. Samantha McCann will be Stage Manager.
DONG XUAN CENTER is a Finalist for the 2019 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference
Dong Xuan Center was selected as one of 67 finalists for the 2019 O’Neill NPC Summer Season. The full list can be found here.
Updates: 2 April 2019
PERFORMANCE: I’ll be appearing in Unattended Baggage’s new production of Roberto Aguirro-Sacasa’s The Weird! Runs 11-13 April 2019 at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
PLAYWRITING: My first full-length play Dong Xuan Center is now on New Play Exchange! It’s an older draft, new one coming soon!
GRAPHIC DESIGN You can catch my work on Sam Chanse’s Fruiting Bodies at Ma-Yi Theater Company. You can see some of my art on my gallery.