Theater | refugenius

I write plays and sometimes act in them.

I am an emerging playwright. I started playwriting in 2010. I got my big break in 2011 when I was invited to participate in the New Performance Program, a fellowship program for new playwrights and writers who weren't necessarily playwrights to create new work.

On October 12, 2013 my first full-length play, KUNG FU ZOMBIES VS CANNIBALS (KFZC), opened on the same night as the Zombie Pub Crawl at the 210-seat Southern Theatre in Minneapolis. KFZC was a vehicle to inform American audiences of the secret carpet-bombing campaign ordered by the CIA during the Vietnam war. KFZC was inspired by the work of Legacies of War.

The 3-weeks production closed with a 92% capacity with 54% of ticket sales from audiences 18-25 years old. KFZC is Mu Performing Arts’ highest grossing world premiere and was named Best Production of 2013 by L’Etoile Magazine. The production was mentioned in the New York Times and received high acclaim from City Pages, Vita.MN, TC Daily Planet, to name a few. The Star Tribune wrote,

Mu Performing Arts deserves credit for bringing this ambitious new playwright to their stage.

Since 2013, I’ve received grants to develop my work and my plays have been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Mu Performing Arts, the Consortium of Asian American Theater Artists, Theater Unbound, and Lazy Hmong Woman Productions.

I'm currently developing the musical IN THE CAMPS: A REFUGEE MUSICAL and two full length plays called KUNG FU ZOMBIES VS SHAMAN WARRIOR (a play exploring mental health in a post-apocalyptic world) and THE SOURIYATHAYS (a play about anti-blackness and racial/identity formations within a Lao family).