Scripts
Selected Plays, Screenplays & Libretti
(For production rights, contact Toochis Morin at the Brant Rose Agency.
Read excerpts at the New Play Exchange.
Read excerpts at the New Play Exchange.
|
BONE TO PICK
Serio-Comedy, One Act, Unit Set, 1W A postmodern adaptation of the myth of Ariadne: Prince Theseus promises to marry Ariadne if she helps him through the labyrinth to kill her half-brother, the Minotaur. Mission accomplished, he abandons her on a desert island, where for the last 3000 years, she’s been waiting tables in a diner at the end of a battle-worn world. What is the price of love and war? “It isn’t just the way the woman in the soiled diner waitress outfit says the words that makes them drip carnage and sexuality. It’s Eugenie Chan’s script… Bone is richly rewarding right down to its marrow.” (San Francisco Chronicle) Production: Festival51, RI, (2015). Cutting Ball Theatre (2008, 2010). Best of 2008, San Francisco Bay Guardian. |
Paige Rogers as Ria in Bone to Pick, Cutting Ball, 2011
|
DIADEM
Drama, One Act, Unit Set, 1W
Companion piece to Bone to Pick. A true-to-the-myth version of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur. How one woman’s love helps restore civilization to a brutal world.
Production: Cutting Ball (2011)
DAPHNE DOES DIM SUM
Comedy, Full-length, Unit Set, 2M, 2W
Watch Daphne and Bessie, two seventy-something Chinese American ladies-who-lunch, duke it out for the pride of paying the bill at their weekly gossipfests—until a man comes between them. A hilarious comedy about old pals and new enemies—boxing match and sight gags included.
Production: Centenary Stage (2008). Workshop: Centenary Stage (2008).
Drama, One Act, Unit Set, 1W
Companion piece to Bone to Pick. A true-to-the-myth version of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur. How one woman’s love helps restore civilization to a brutal world.
Production: Cutting Ball (2011)
DAPHNE DOES DIM SUM
Comedy, Full-length, Unit Set, 2M, 2W
Watch Daphne and Bessie, two seventy-something Chinese American ladies-who-lunch, duke it out for the pride of paying the bill at their weekly gossipfests—until a man comes between them. A hilarious comedy about old pals and new enemies—boxing match and sight gags included.
Production: Centenary Stage (2008). Workshop: Centenary Stage (2008).
Jose Abaoag, Vera Wong, and Mona Armonio Leach in Rancho Grande, Northwest Asian American Theater, 1997.
|
RANCHO GRANDE
Serio-Comedy, Full-length, Flexible Set, 3M, 3W The desert southwest. A single smoking campfire. Above, two Chinese gods, Oxboy and Moon Lady, fly in the night sky. Below, young Mamie dreams of having a baby. But with no one to turn to except her oddball pioneer family and the flighty gods, what’s a Chinese American cowgirl to do? A Chinese American Western, complete with wordplay, stunning visuals, the iconography of the West, and gunshots. Productions: Thick Description (2001); Northwest Asian American Theatre (1997). Workshops: PlayLabs (1995); Bay Area Playwrights Festival (1994). |
EMIL, A CHINESE PLAY
Comedy, Flexible Set, Full-length, 3M, 3W
A young South American journeys through the United States, into the heart of Chinatown, and lands in the arms of Mother, the quintessential Chinese uber-mom, who will do anything, anything at all, to find her spinster daughter a man. A sweet comedy about lonely hearts and the American dream.
Staged readings: East West Players (1993); Pan Asian Repertory (1992). Workshop: Seattle Group Theatre (1992). Winner: Mixed Blood vs. America Playwriting Contest (1994).
NOVELL-AAH!
Black Comedy, One Act, Simple Unit Set, 3W, 1 male voice
Set in the high drama of the telenovela, blonde Chinese diva Marlene, puts her tuxedoed daughter, Izzy, through the paces of courtship. Izzy loves Carlos. But Marlene loves Carlos too. More important, will Carlos ever come? Only Olga the maid knows. A dizzying vortex of gender, culture, and mother-daughter competition.
Productions: City College of San Francisco (2001); Perishable Theatre (1996); Brava! For Women in the Arts (1994); Columbia University (1993). Workshop: The Public Theatre (1993). Staged Reading: Duke University (2005).
CIRCUS (or Mah-heih!)
Comedy, One Act, Unit Set, 4M, 5W
Based on interviews with Chinese from different generations of immigration to the United States, this play explores what Chinese Americans desire in the performing arts. The immigrants are re-imagined as acrobats in the circus that is life in America.
Staged reading: Self-Help for the Elderly, San Francisco, 2009. Commissioned by The San Francisco Foundation and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund through support from The Wallace Foundation.
PILGRIM
Black Comedy, Short Play, Unit Set 1M, 1W
A little tale of corporate lust. In the midst of a dark and stormy night, Maxine, the temp, finds her heart’s desire in the form of the company fixer, a giant falcon named Perry. But is it love or co-option? Only the other typists will tell.
Staged readings: Marin Academy (2008); Duke University (2005).
TOUR SINO
A Short Radio Play, 3M, 3W
Rowena, a former Red Guard turned tour leader, takes a group of American tourists to Tiananmen Square. But the simple expedition turns into a dangerous confrontation with the ghosts of the Tiananmen Massacre Democracy movement.
Production: WBAI (1993).
CONSENT
Drama, 15 Minutes, Unit Set, 1M, 2W
Two daughters confront the risks of enrolling their dying father in a new cancer therapy, only to pick at old family wounds. Unable to move or communicate, Dad still proves that love rules the day.
Staged readings: The Exploratorium (2008, 2007); Magic Theatre (2007).
SNAKEWOMAN
Opera Libretto, Flexible Set,90 Minutes, 4M, 4W
A mythic tale of a three-breasted, three-armed, Asian goddess—half-woman, half snake. Now an angry single mother of three teen princesses—one Black, one White, and one Lemon Yellow, she must contend with their man-crazy desires. Sadly, her zeal leads to tragedy. A fairy tale about transforming woman’s fury into mother’s blessing.
Workshop: Cutting Ball Theatre (2004). Staged Reading: Bay Area Playwrights Festival (2003).
WILLY GEE!
Black Comedy/Screenplay, 90 Minutes, 3M, 3W
It’s the Roaring 20s in California. Little Willy Gee, a Chinese American boy, grows up in his family’s small town bordello. When he falls in love with forbidden fruit—a woman from the family business and a white girl from school—what’s a young boy to do?
Cinestory Finalist (1997). Nicholl Fellowship Semi-Finalist (1993).
Comedy, Flexible Set, Full-length, 3M, 3W
A young South American journeys through the United States, into the heart of Chinatown, and lands in the arms of Mother, the quintessential Chinese uber-mom, who will do anything, anything at all, to find her spinster daughter a man. A sweet comedy about lonely hearts and the American dream.
Staged readings: East West Players (1993); Pan Asian Repertory (1992). Workshop: Seattle Group Theatre (1992). Winner: Mixed Blood vs. America Playwriting Contest (1994).
NOVELL-AAH!
Black Comedy, One Act, Simple Unit Set, 3W, 1 male voice
Set in the high drama of the telenovela, blonde Chinese diva Marlene, puts her tuxedoed daughter, Izzy, through the paces of courtship. Izzy loves Carlos. But Marlene loves Carlos too. More important, will Carlos ever come? Only Olga the maid knows. A dizzying vortex of gender, culture, and mother-daughter competition.
Productions: City College of San Francisco (2001); Perishable Theatre (1996); Brava! For Women in the Arts (1994); Columbia University (1993). Workshop: The Public Theatre (1993). Staged Reading: Duke University (2005).
CIRCUS (or Mah-heih!)
Comedy, One Act, Unit Set, 4M, 5W
Based on interviews with Chinese from different generations of immigration to the United States, this play explores what Chinese Americans desire in the performing arts. The immigrants are re-imagined as acrobats in the circus that is life in America.
Staged reading: Self-Help for the Elderly, San Francisco, 2009. Commissioned by The San Francisco Foundation and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund through support from The Wallace Foundation.
PILGRIM
Black Comedy, Short Play, Unit Set 1M, 1W
A little tale of corporate lust. In the midst of a dark and stormy night, Maxine, the temp, finds her heart’s desire in the form of the company fixer, a giant falcon named Perry. But is it love or co-option? Only the other typists will tell.
Staged readings: Marin Academy (2008); Duke University (2005).
TOUR SINO
A Short Radio Play, 3M, 3W
Rowena, a former Red Guard turned tour leader, takes a group of American tourists to Tiananmen Square. But the simple expedition turns into a dangerous confrontation with the ghosts of the Tiananmen Massacre Democracy movement.
Production: WBAI (1993).
CONSENT
Drama, 15 Minutes, Unit Set, 1M, 2W
Two daughters confront the risks of enrolling their dying father in a new cancer therapy, only to pick at old family wounds. Unable to move or communicate, Dad still proves that love rules the day.
Staged readings: The Exploratorium (2008, 2007); Magic Theatre (2007).
SNAKEWOMAN
Opera Libretto, Flexible Set,90 Minutes, 4M, 4W
A mythic tale of a three-breasted, three-armed, Asian goddess—half-woman, half snake. Now an angry single mother of three teen princesses—one Black, one White, and one Lemon Yellow, she must contend with their man-crazy desires. Sadly, her zeal leads to tragedy. A fairy tale about transforming woman’s fury into mother’s blessing.
Workshop: Cutting Ball Theatre (2004). Staged Reading: Bay Area Playwrights Festival (2003).
WILLY GEE!
Black Comedy/Screenplay, 90 Minutes, 3M, 3W
It’s the Roaring 20s in California. Little Willy Gee, a Chinese American boy, grows up in his family’s small town bordello. When he falls in love with forbidden fruit—a woman from the family business and a white girl from school—what’s a young boy to do?
Cinestory Finalist (1997). Nicholl Fellowship Semi-Finalist (1993).