Queens Theatre's NEW AMERICAN VOICES
Rob Urbinati, Director of New Play Development
presents
MORE SHORTS!
Another Evening of Short Plays
December 4, 2021 at 8:00 PM
Featuring plays by Kitty Chen, Mrinalini Kamath, Nina Ki, Nandita Shenoy, and Lucy Wang
Directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar and Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li
A Smooth Transition
by Mrinalini Kamath, directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar
Broken English
by Nina Ki, directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li
Rowing to America
by Kitty Chen, directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li
To The Stars, With Love
by Nandita Shenoy, directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar
Two Artists Trying to Pay the Bill
by Lucy Wang, directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li
Walkable Feast
by Lucy Wang, directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar
CAST
Borah Ahn, Subin Kara Ahn, Shan Y. Chuang,
Stuart Green, Alexandra Kumala, Nancy Yao Maasbach, Charles Pang, and David Price
Meet the Artists
Kitty Chen - Playwright has been working in the theater as actor and playwright for almost half a century! She majored in math at Brown University, then fled science and academia for New York and a life in the arts. She has received grants and awards from the NEA, NFA (3 times), and other organizations, and her plays have been published and produced widely. She is a script reader for The O’Neill Playwrights Conference. “Rosa Loses Her Face” enjoyed a full production here at Queens Theater in 2009.
Mrinalini Kamath - Playwright - her radio play STUFF, inspired by the NY Times article “The Lonely Death of George Bell,” was recently produced by APAC and can currently be heard on various podcasting sites. A graduate of the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University and the MFA program in playwriting at the Actors Studio Drama School at the New School for Social Research, Mrinalini received a 2019 Queens Council on the Arts grant to develop Term Limits, her play about unorthodox sperm donation during volatile political times. Her play Let There Be Love (developed in part by the PGE!) a mash-up of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, the Greek mythof Eros and Psyche, and the debate of online dating versus matchmaking, was produced in 2020 outside of Seattle, Washington. She was a Mellon Creative initiative fellow twice through the summer program jointly administered by the Ma-Yi Writers Lab and the U. Washington School of Drama. Several of Mrinalini’s plays and monologues have been published in anthologies. She is an alumna of Youngblood and The Mission to (dit)Mars Propulsion Lab and a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab as well as The PlayGround Experiment. www.mkwriter.com
Nina Ki - Playwright (she/her/hers) is a Queerean (Queer + Korean) American playwright who was born and raised in Los Angeles, but currently lives in Brooklyn. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2008 with a BFA in Dramatic Writing, and her plays have been read and produced nationwide, including with Queens Theatre, Brave New World Repertory, The Classical Theater of Harlem, The Living Room Theater, the HBMG Foundation, Funhouse, InspiraTO, and Another Country Productions. She is a recipient of ALAP's Diversity Fellowship, and recently her play “Moon Bear” was given special consideration for the Relentless Award. Her work has been published in LGBT Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny, the In Full Color anthology, and YouthPLAYS. To contact her or learn more about her work, please visit her website at www.nina-ki.com.
Nandita Shenoy - Playwright is a New York-based writer-actor. Her play, Baby Camp, was recently a Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and her Rage Play was named to the Kilroys List 2020. Her play Washer/Dryer has been produced nationally multiple times after its world premier at LA’s East West Players and an Off-Broadway production at Ma-Yi Theater in which she also starred. Her first full-length, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by theHegira in Washington, DC. Her one-acts have been produced in New York City and regionally. Nandita won the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwriting. Her acting credits range from national tours to Shakespeare festivals to world premieres of new plays by living playwrights. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the dtfwaw, the Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity Association, and SAG/AFTRA. She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) which won a 2020 Obie for their Advocacy in the Field of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University. www.nanditashenoy.com
Lucy Wang - Playwright writes, teaches and performs. Her plays have been performed all over, and are available at Original Works Publishing, JAC Publishing, Amazon, One Act Depot, and YouthPLAYS. Wang has also written two short films (one of which she directed), and sold a pilot to Disney. Her awards include the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, Best New Political Social Play from the Katherine and Lee Chilcote Foundation, Berrilla Kerr Foundation, James Thurber Fellowship, CAPE’s New Writers TV Award, NATPE Diversity Fellow, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Honorary Fellow, Annenberg Community Beach House Writer in Residence. She currently teaches at E-script.ws and her papers are archived at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Aneesha Kudtarkar - Director (she/her) is a New York-based theatre director. She is a trained Indian Classical dancer who calls upon her background in dance to create compositionally driven pieces of theatre that often centralize and celebrate underrepresented communities. Her directorial projects include The Cherry Orchard (The New School) Romeo and Juliet (Two River Theatre, TinyShakes) The Who and the What (TheaterWorks Hartford) Men on Boats (Southern Methodist University), [Veil Widow Conspiracy] (National Asian American Theatre Company), Trouble in Mind (Yale School of Drama), The Purple Flower (Yale Cabaret), Mud (Hangar Theatre). Aneesha has also developed new work with Clubbed Thumb, Gingold Theatrical Group, and the Hunter MFA Playwriting Program. She is an alumna of the Yale School of Drama.
Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li - Director. Originally from Taiwan, Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li is a director, playwright, performer, and a performance artist. Dennis' works explore diaspora, sexuality, and power structure. Dennis is especially interested in adapting rarely produced modern classics by connecting them with the current socio-political phenomenon and issues. Dennis earned his MA in Performance Studies at New York University. Dennis worked extensively with The Living Theatre as an associate artistic director, and is an alumnus of the New York Directing Fellowship of Drama League and the Institute Fellowship of Target Margin Theater. Dennis is also a member of Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. Dennis is one of the grant recipients from the Queens Arts Fund of Queens Council on the Arts for his bilingual play, "Rhapsody M." Currently, Dennis works on the artistic director team of the newly founded Al Límite Collective. www.dennisyuehyehli.com
Queens Theatre
Staff
Taryn Sacramone, Executive Director
Connie Baker, Rentals and Events Manager
Charles Bennett, Building Attendant
Victor Catano, Production Manager
Dominic D'Andrea, Director of Community Engagement
Richard Hinojosa, Director of Education
Vasilios Leon, Box Office Assistant
Alexis Lubin, Finance Manager
Willy Mosquera, Front of House Manager
Gregg Mozgala, Director of Inclusion
Bernadette Ott, Development Manager
Gabriel Rodriguez, Box Office Supervisor
Jay Rogers, Director of Operations/GM
Jordi Toro, Box Office Assistant
Jorge Toro, Building Attendant
Rob Urbinati, Director of New Play Development
Steve Wolf, Assistant Production Manager/Lighting Supervisor
Board of Directors
Executive Committee
Gary Kesner, President
Tracy Capune, Vice President
Bruce Levine, Treasurer
Mark Misk, Secretary
Members
Georgiana Benatti
Bob Blenderman
Steve Chen
Salvatore DiMartino
Susan B. Lipsky
Irene Zoupaniotis
Ex-Officio
Frances A. Resheske, Board President Emeritus
Bill DeBlasio, New York City Mayor
Gonzalo Casals, Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
Donovan Richards, Queens Borough President
Michael Dockett, Queens Borough Commissioner, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation