As part of Bedlam Theater Company’s New Writing Series, my play Little Stubby Wings, Like She Could’ve Glued Them On will be receiving a reading on October 25th at the Connelly Theater. To RSVP, click on the header link.
The cast includes: Sagan Chen, Jenelle Chu, Wai Ching Ho, Carolyn Kettig, Michelle Kim, Ashil Lee, Fenton Li, Nadia Pinder.
Yangtze Repertory Theater will be streaming five commissioned pieces, inspired by Pu Songling’s classic, “Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio.” Included in the New York Times’ piece, “Theater to Stream: A Dispatch From Britain and a Greek Classic,” the pieces will be streaming from June 23rd until July 17th.
To watch, follow this link here! My piece, “my dead husband bought a gun and came for me today” is performed by the brilliant E.J. An.
The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues will host a special edition tonight in support of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. The evening has been guest curated by Victor Malana Maog and Sung Rno, and performances will be available on IGTV @24hourplays and at https://24hourplays.com/viral-monologues/. Fourteen actors have been paired with writers who have crafted unique pieces especially for their actors. From 6 PM until 10 PM, new monologues will be published every 15 minutes.
The actors performing the series of Viral Monologues will include: Deborah S. Craig, Eugene Young, Francesca McKenzie, Jackie Chung, Ken Leung, Louis Ozawa, Manu Narayan, Maureen Sebastian, Pun Bandhu, Raymond Lee, Sarah Lo, Stephen Park, Aaron Yoo and Hudson Yang.
Alvin Eng, Anna Ouyang Moench, A. Rey Pamatmat, Carla Ching, Dipika Guha, Dustin H. Chinn, Ins Choi, Keiko Green, Madhuri Shekar, Melisa Tien, Stefani Kuo 郭佳怡, Vichet Chum and Sung Rno wrote the monologues.
My piece, Big Fucking Brain, was performed by Eugene Young and can be viewed here!
March 19th, 2021
The Kitchen Theatre Company will collaborate with Ma-Yi Theater, the nation's premiere incubator of Asian-American new plays, on the first of two new play development workshops in its 2020-2021 season. Stefani Kuo's China Dreams or The Conservation of Parity will be led by Chicago and New York director Jess McLeod; cast by KTC veteran Judy Bowman; and will star Ruibo Qian (Black Mirror, Mozart in the Jungle) along with Michael Liu, Fang Du, Jason Butler Harner, Will Dao, Kristen Hung, and Wai Ching Ho.
The play tells the story of Wu Chien-Shiung, a Nobel Prize laureate who was the only woman and the only foreign-born scientist on the Manhattan Project. It chronicles her first decades in America on her journey to becoming a physicist, battling personal challenges being separated from her home in China. While Wu's two worlds are physically far apart, emotionally, they reach out to each other to connect. Interlaced with English, Madarin and Cantonese dialogue, we not only see the human behind the groundbreaking science, but the strenuous choices that underscore her success.
The play will be workshopped in association with Manhattan's Ma-Yi Theatre, the professional, award-winning not-for-profit organization whose primary mission is to develop and produce new and innovative plays by Asian American writers. Ralph B. Peña, Producing Artistic Director at Ma- Yi Theatre says "When David first approached me with the idea of working on Stefani Kuo's "China Dreams," it took but half a second to say yes. We're thrilled to be part of developing an exciting new play by a young writer, who tells stories with a daring and singular voice. We're equally happy to be working with the Kitchen Theatre to help bring these kinds of plays to audiences in Ithaca."
Broadcasts of recording 3/10-3/14
by Stefani Kuo
directed by Mei Ann Teo
in partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company
Written by rising star Stefani Kuo and directed by Mei Ann Teo (SKiNFoLK: An American Show), Final Boarding Call tells the stories of the current Hong Kong protests. The play revolves around the interconnected stories of seven characters whose backgrounds and perspectives run the spectrum – a protesting brother and flight attendant sister struggling to keep her job; a Mainland Chinese mother and her estranged Hong Kong daughter; a non-Cantonese speaking reporter and her Indian partner; and an American expat CEO and Hong Kong lover living in the shadows. The play begins and ends with a flight, an entrance into the Hong Kong protests and how the politics we see on the news every day affects the citizens of Hong Kong in their day-to-day lives. It gives the audience a window into China’s grip on global capitalism. How far will they go to fight for family, freedom, and the right to be heard?
WP Theater is thrilled to team up with the acclaimed Ma-Yi Theater Company—one of the country’s leading incubators of new works shaping local and national conversations about what it means to be Asian American today—to share a story as current as the headlines in today’s news.
For more information about Ma-Yi Theater Company and their work, go to ma-yitheatre.org.
delicacy of a puffin heart was mentioned in this article in the NYTimes!
“If you miss the joy of a discovering an up-and-coming playwright or witnessing performances that challenge your expectations of what theater can do, look no further than the live-event-turned-podcast, ‘The Parsnip Ship.’ The Brooklyn-based organization endeavors to elevate marginalized voices and emerging playwrights, staging their works before a live audience with musical performances and an interview with the playwright. Each new show spotlights the experiences of marginalized people, like the Japanese transgender woman in Ashley Lauren Rogers’ ‘The Last Ring,’ or the San Francisco lesbian couple navigating in vitro fertilization and bipolar II disorder in ‘Delicacy of a Puffin Heart,’ by Stefani Kuo. Before each show begins, the organization’s artistic director and the podcast’s host, Iyvon Edebiri, asks the playwright ‘What would the world be missing if it did not have this play?’”
Directed by Theo Maltz
Performed by Diane Chen, Drita Kabashi, Cleo Gray, Dominique Brillon, Omer Koren, Brittany Annika Liu
Have a listen on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play!
Directed by Nicholas Polonio
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18TH, 2020
8:00PM, READING
7:30PM, LIVE MUSIC
Every other Tuesday for the rest of the calendar year, BEDLAM will be presenting live virtual play readings in an effort to raise funds and awareness for the #BlackLivesMatter movement and associated organizations working toward eliminating race-based discrimination.
China Dreams or The Conservation of Parity traces the life of Wu Chien-Shiung, an overlooked Chinese-American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, and later went on to disprove the Conservation of Parity, a feat that would win the Nobel Prize in Physics for the first Chinese physicists – but did not include her. This is the first new play in Bedlam’s upcoming reading series.
Established in 1976 by Robert Woodruff, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival is one of the oldest and most successful new play festivals in the U.S., continuously discovering original and distinctive new voices in the theater, and investing in the development of their work. Alum include Pulitzer Prize winners Nilo Cruz, Annie Baker, and Sam Shepard.
This year’s festival, “Be a Part of the Story,” will take place virtually July 17-26, and welcomes a new cohort of five female playwrights who are telling stories of strength, love, family, self-discovery, and the fight for freedom. This reading will be password protected for security reasons – get your ticket here now!
Final Boarding Call by Stefani Kuo
Directed by Desdemona Chiang
Dramaturg Heather Helinsky
July 19th 5 pm PST / 8 pm EST (July 20th 8 am HKT)
July 25th 5 pm PST / 8 pm EST (July 26th 8 am HKT)
Final Boarding Call tells the human stories of the current Hong Kong protests revolving around seven interconnected characters whose backgrounds and perspectives run the spectrum. A protesting brother and flight attendant sister struggling to stay safe while fighting for what they believe in; a Mainland Chinese mother seeking forgiveness from her Hong Kong reporter daughter for previous wrongs and judgements of her Indian husband; and an American expat CEO and Hong Kong lover living in the shadows. We see a window into China’s grip on global capitalism, but most importantly, we see how the politics on the news every day affects the citizens of Hong Kong and their day to day lives.
Crossing Borders presents China Dreams, or the Conservation of Paritywritten by Stefani Kuo and directed by Nicholas Polonio. The play explores the life and work of physicist Wu Chien-Shiung, who was the only Chinese woman that helped create the atomic bomb in America.
Over the past decade, more immigrants have migrated to the United States from Asia than from any other region in the world, making Asians the country’s fastest-growing immigrant population. In celebration of the Immigrant Heritage Month, American Dream Redux and Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) co-present Crossing Borders, a play-reading series dedicated to showcasing the works of Asian immigrant playwrights in New York City.
Crossing Borders showcases the work of three Asian immigrant playwrights, Dipika Guha, Stefani Kuo, and Zhu Yi, whose work explores the shared yet complex immigrant experiences through theater. The plays are directed by Seonjae Kim, Ryan Dobrin, and Nicholas Polonio.
This event is free and open to the public. RSVP required. We’ll send the Zoom meeting link to all registered attendees. RSVP here.
As part of the 14th Annual MFA Playwrights Workshop at the Kennedy Center, I will be acting in Ali Viterbi’s play, In Every Generation, directed by Howard Shalwitz. The Kennedy Center will host more than 60 theater-makers from July 27-August 4, 2019 as part of the week-long Workshop featuring new works by graduate students or recent MFA graduates from the University of California, San Diego, Iowa Playwrights' Workshop, Boston University, National Theatre School of Canada, and Brown University.
In Every Generation by Ali Viterbi - UCSD
Directed by Howard Shalwitz, Founding Artistic Director (ret.), Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Dramaturgy by Gabrielle Hoyt, Literary Manager, Round House Theatre (Bethesda)*
National Directing Fellow: Will Detlefsen
Sound Design by Louis E. Davis
Noor Theatre hosts an annual forty-eight hour play festival where a diverse roster of artists are invited to spin our most talked about Middle Eastern-themed news events into humorous, incisive "theatrical op-eds." Taking place each May, five playwrights, five directors, and a company of actors gather over 48 hours in a race to create theater as fast as a news cycle.
This year’s playwrights include Ty Dafoe (Musical Theatre Factory Makers Cohort, Clouds Are Pillows For The Moon), Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Veil’d, The Kilroys), Dai-wei (delicacy of a puffin heart, Page 73 Fellow), Mona Mansour (Urge for Going, The Way West), and Sanaz Toossi (Page 73 Playwriting Fellow, EST’s Youngblood), along with directors Shayok Misha Chowdhury (MukhAgni, Your Healing is Killing Me), Estefania Fadul (Scissoring, "O’Neil/NNPN National Directors Fellowship), Tracy Cameron Francis (Holy Land, NY Arab Comedy Festival), Taylor Reynolds (Plano), and Megan Sandberg-Zakian (Nat Turner in Jerusalum).
Come see June is The First Fall by Yilong Liu
March 31 - April 20th
The cast includes Alton Alburo, Chun Cho, Dai-wei, Fenton Li, and Karsten Otto.
In a New York premiere that marks a new chapter for the 27-year-old company rooted in the New York City's vibrant Asian-American community, Yangtze Repertory Theatre tackles JUNE IS THE FIRST FALL, an award-winning contemporary play by Yilong Liu exploring the themes of identity, sexuality, and immigration. Directed by the 2016 OBIE winner Michael Leibenluft, the play tells a story of a gay Chinese man who comes back home to Hawaii and begins a journey of reconciliation between his chosen identity and the heritage he left behind. The production will be playing at New Ohio Theatre (at 154 Christopher Street, NYC); performances run from March 31 thru April 20. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased through OvationTix (https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1005801/1551416400000) or by calling 866-811-4111.
As part of Page 73’s writers group, Interstate 73, these eight writers meet bi-weekly to share pages, workshop one another’s work, and put on a staged reading of a full-length work towards the end of their year together.
by Ali Viterbi @ HERE Arts Center
August 24th, 7pm
August 25th, 2pm & 7pm
August 26th, 2pm
For more info and tickets click here!
Check out an interview I did for Playbill as one of five emerging playwrights to catch in New York this summer! Come see 'delicacy of a puffin heart' July 25th to August 5th!
Get your tickets here now!
Today, I had the wonderful opportunity of teaching playwriting to a group of seniors in college graduating to become English teachers in the Taipei elementary school system.
Thank you Shida for this opportunity, and to these wonderful students who are going to become amazing English teachers for Taipei's children to come!
I am so excited to be announcing that tickets are finally live for my play, delicacy of a puffin heart, that will be going up as part of the 2018 Corkscrew Theatre Festival season!
delicacy of a puffin heart will be produced at Paradise Factory, downtown Manhattan, July 25th to August 5th. Come support this new play I am so excited to share with the world!
Link to tickets here!
by Stefani Kuo
Director Theo Maltz
Producer Catherine Woodard
Marketing/Development Meg McDermott
Come see a world premiere of Speaking As Then, a new play by Columbia Playwriting MFA Candidate Ruoxin Xu and directed by Noam Shapiro.
Stefani's play, Architecture of Rain, is being produced as a staged reading on Saturday March 10th at 7:30 PM with Checkmark Theatre Company.
Checkmark Theatre Company’s mission is to encourage the development of underrepresented artists and their stories. Their inaugural event is a reading series taking place at the Alchemical Theatre Lab (104 West 14th Street, NY, NY, 10011, 3rd floor) on March 9th and 10th.
Architecture of Rain is the finale of the series:
Saturday March 10th at 7:30pm:
ARCHITECTURE OF RAIN, by Stefani Kuo
Anyone who wants a seat can email checkmarktheatre@gmail.com, subject heading: DEVO RSVP
This past August and September I was an artist-in-residence at the Centre of Substructured Loss in Berlin, Germany. The residency was comprised of five female artists from all over the world, and my work, which focused on poetry, photography, and installation art was displayed as part of the exhibition at the end during Berlin Art Week. My work, which focused on my relationship with my father as it relates to our sense of loss, was titled Post-Mortem and is a project I intend to further as a solo performance piece in New York.
