Eugenie Chan Theater Projects
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Cantonese Opera House, San Francisco, 1882
The Truer History of the Chan Family
​A New Vaudeville by Byron Au Yong and Eugenie Chan
Music: Byron Au Yong
Lyrics, Book & Story: Eugenie Chan

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The Kwangtung Quartet with Thomas Chan, my great uncle, circa 1920s. Photo courtesy of Camille Wing and Family.
The Truer History of the Chan Family is a rollicking new vaudeville about the impact of America’s legacy of anti-Asian legislation and sex trafficking on three generations of the playwright’s Chinese American family. We layer original material with actual family documents to explore the world my grandfather Gumdock Chan and great-uncle Thomas knew - and made - one of high hopes and hard choices. ​​

The Truer History of the Chan Family ​goes hybrid in 2024~

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L-R: Keiko Shimosato Carreiro* & Chuck Lacson singing "The Googoo Song."

​In February 2020, we made music at the San Francisco Mime Troupe and tried out our new songs with a live audience.

In March 2020, we began to shelter-in-place.

Then in June 2020, we decided the show must go on...digitally!

In Fall 2020, we devised and experimented our way to a virtual vaudeville now in development to be streamed free-to-the public.

In 2021 we postponed our production and surveyed our audiences to see how they would like to return to the theater. A significant portion of our stakeholders would like to return to in-person performance; an equally significant number are unsure and feel safer online.

Voila! Stay tuned for our hybrid version in 2024. That's how long it will take for us to make a show that you can see live...or virtually! Yeehaa! 


The Truer History of the Chan Family ​receives a 2020 NEFA award!

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We are so honored to be a 2020 grantee and  a 2019 finalist for a New England Foundation for the Arts National Theater Project grant. This generous award allows us to adapt Truer History into a hybrid live and digital performance for our changing times.


Our 2019 reading of The Truer History of the Chan Family is a success!

December 14, 2019. At the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, San Francisco. During this pivotal developmental reading, we realize the story is about the battle between whose family history is truer -- the one told by grandfather Gumdock Chan or his granddaughter, the playwright Eugenie (yep, a character in the show), So we change the title of Chan Family Picnic to THE TRUER HISTORY OF THE CHAN FAMILY! 
The Truer History of the Chan Family
​A New Vaudeville by Byron Au Yong and Eugenie Chan
Music: Byron Au Yong
Lyrics, Book & Story: Eugenie Chan
Directed by Annie Elias
Music Director: Jonathan Erman
​With Nicole Apostol Bruno*, Will Dao*, Rob Dario, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro*, Benjamin Pither*, Shauna Satnick, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Ogie Zulueta*, musicians  Alan Yip and Jonathan Erman. Stage managed by Eteya Trinidad.

​*member Actors Equity Association
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Alan Yip amazes on the erhu.
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(L-R: Keiko Shimosato Carreiro*, Nicole Apostol Bruno*, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart. Seated: Will Dao*, Shauna Satnick)
Big Mama, a Working Girl and Eugenie celebrate finding a clean, well-lighted place for Eugenie to write her Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
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(L-R: Alan Yip, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Rob Dario)
Eugenie (the character in the vaudeville) yearns to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
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(L-R: Ogie Zulueta*, Rob Dario, Will Dao*)
The men, including Big Daddy, his son Gumdock Chan (the  and a blood brother, tell it like it is about duty and honor in the Hip Yee Tong.
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This reading is supported with the generous contributions from the RHE Charitable Foundation and individual donors.
​
Chan Family Picnic was developed with the support of New Dramatists, the Ground Floor, Arts  Montalvo, the Catwalk Residency and the San Francisco Arts Commission.


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At Arts Montalvo

A week in July 2018:

​ Working on ​Chan Family Picnic in a sublime studio courtesy of
​Arts Montalvo and composer
Byron Au Yong.
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I'm trying to be a nutty vaudevillian, without the nutty vaudevillians. It's very difficult -- gimme the nuts now!
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​
​Check out these nutty vaudevillians at the Ground Floor!

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(Bonnie Akimoto, Taylor Steinbeck, Eugenie, Lisa Hori-Garcia, Byron Au Yong, Pauli Amornkul, Dustin Chinn, Steven Ko, Lily Tung Crystal, Marcelo Pereira, Benjamin Pither, and Monica Ho overwhelm musician Wes Asakawa holding a "licorice stick.")
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July 4 - 16, 2017:  At Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor. Eugenie, composer Byron Au Yong, ​musician Wes Asakawa, and the amazing team of performers Pauli Amornkul, Marcelo Pereira, Monica Ho, Dustin Chinn, Lily Tung Crystal, and Bonnie Akimoto try out some singing, dancing, hamming and huddling together to begin to make a vaudeville. And this is only the  beginning! Stay tuned.
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(L-R: Pauli Amornkul, Marcelo Pereira, Monica Ho, Dustin Chinn, Lily Tung Crystal, and Bonnie Akimoto heed Byron Au Yong's musical direction in the Great Hall rehearsal room at Berkeley Rep.

​December 13, 2016: Chan Family Picnic rises!  Since the reading of 19 Wentworth, 've made some important discoveries about my grandfather Gumdock Chan's medical school letters and documents from the 1920's and about the story.  The piece has become even more personal, I'm adding another storyline that probes the impact of trafficking on another member of the Chan family, in addition to Gumdock -- his granddaughter, me. I'm changing things up, starting anew, and the work is gonna be a full fledged vaudeville -- Chan Family Picnic, being created with an ensemble of Bay Area artists, like Lisa Hori-Garcia, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, Bonnie Akimoto, Lily Tung Crystal, and more, AND longtime collaborator, the sublime composer Byron Au Yong. 

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Gumdock's mistress (Beverly Sotelo) gets down as Gumdock (Arthur Keng) eggs her on and his mother (Bonnie Akimoto), Working Girl (Lily Tung Crystal), a reporter (John Patrick Moore) look on, while Eugenie (Lisa Hori-Garcia) tries to make herself scarce.
December 14, 2015, Z Below, San Francisco:  Reading of  19 Wentworth Alley, Chinatown, precursor to Chan Family Picnic. I wrote  19 Wentworth from the improvs and exploratory moments performers and I devised in the Bay Area and New York's New Dramatists. I got to work with amazing artists on both coasts.

(With Arthur Keng as Gumdock, Lisa Hori-Garcia as Eugenie, Bonnie Akimoto as Gumdock's Mother, John Patrick Moore as Gumdock's Father, Monica Ho as Gumdock's wife Susie Sue, Beverly Sotelo as his Mistress, Jomar Tagatac as his son Hale, and Lily Tung Crystal as the Working Girl. Wes Asakawa accompanies on clarinet.)

New Play Reading

19 Wentworth Alley, Chinatown

December 14, 2015. 7 pm

Z Below, San Francisco

​​Drawing on the history of her grandfather, a man caught between his studies as a Stanford medical student and his membership in a Chinatown gambling and prostitution guild in early 1900s San Francisco, Eugenie Chan layers original material with fragments of actual family documents to explore the world Chan’s Grandfather knew — and made — one of high hopes and hard choices.

Why I Wrote this Play: Most of what we know about the Chinese in America — which is very little — examines our history as typologies of railroad workers, laundry men, or high tech wunderkind. We are either laborers, crooks, or flawless geniuses. But we never get to look at the people like my grandfather who were betwixt & between, the people beyond the typology.
 
Gumdock Chan carried the unusual burden of both privileged and constricted circumstance. A Stanford grad and the son of a madam at a time when Chinese were intensely discriminated against, how did he make his way in the world? How did he reconcile his family’s past, his future?
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​Play by Eugenie Chan
Directed by Jessica Heidt
Dramaturgy by Laura Brueckner
With Bonnie Akimoto, Lily Tung Crystal, Monica Ho, Lisa Hori-Garcia, Arthur Keng,
John Patrick Moore, Beverly Sotelo, Jomar Tagatac
and clarinetist Wes Asakawa

Z Below
Monday, December 14, 2015
7 pm
$10 suggested donation to Z Below (but absolutely no one turned away at the door)
470 Florida St between 17th & and Mariposa
San Francisco CA 94110
Tickets: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/10047647
Info: eugenieplays@gmail.com

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19 Wentworth Alley, Chinatown benefited from a week-long residency at New Dramatists.

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December 2014, Crowded Fire, San Francisco: Lisa Hori-Garcia, Beverly Sotelo, Ogie Zulueta, Rami Margron, and Lawrence Raedecker high-stepping it in fragments of what will become 19 Wentworth Alley, Chinatown. ​Check out these acting hams! Love them.

December 1, 1925. Where It All Begins: My Grandfather's Medical School Homework
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  • Home
  • About
    • Mission & Vision
    • About Eugenie Chan
    • About ECTP's Managing Director
    • The ECTP Brain Trust
    • Honors & Funders
  • The Projects
    • The Gum Saan Cycle
    • Madame Ho
    • The Truer History of the Chan Family
    • Kitchen Table
  • News & Notes
  • Other Work by Eugenie
    • Other Work
    • Scripts
  • TICKETS
  • Donate
  • Contact