News: Rachel Lin ("Law & Order: Organized Crime") Debuts Solo Show "Dear John" at HERE Arts Center March 6-19

Rachel Lin in Dear John at Brick Aux, 2023. Directed by Nana Dakin. Photo by Marcus Middleton.
Dear John, written by and starring Rachel Lin (Law & Order: Organized Crime, NYTW 2050 Fellow) will run March 6–19, 2026 in the Dorothy B. Williams Theater at HERE Arts Center. Dear John is directed by Tara Elliott, produced by Emily Kleypas and Kelly Letourneau, and co-produced by Ben Natan and AJ Liu with Small Boat Productions.

It’s 2011, and a recent college graduate is trying to move out of her mom’s house (with little hope and no prospects) when she receives a message from a mysterious stranger named John on Facebook. Dear John is a solo show based on a true story about what happens when a long-absent father finds his not-quite-adult daughter through a social networking website. Weaving together Facebook DMs, recorded interviews, and anecdotes of growing up undocumented in New York’s Chinatown, Dear John is a coming-of-age story delightfully told by writer and performer Rachel Lin about the ways we try (and fail) to reach each other, over and over again.

Speaking about her upcoming run at HERE Arts Center, Rachel Lin shares, “My hope is that this small show can be a gift, a spark of joy, a healing balm to immigrants and the communities that raised me.” Dear John is being presented as part of HERE Hosts, a performance series presenting extraordinary multidisciplinary artists and ensembles through flexible partnerships with HERE, engaging artists who share values alignment and demonstrate high creative kinship. “When I first saw Rachel perform a workshop of Dear John, I was struck by how she held us through a big, complicated act of questioning with tons of humanity and gentle humor,” HERE Co-Director Lanxing Fu said, “We're proud to host this show at HERE so more and more people can experience its charm and pathos.”

Linsay Firman, Director of Play Development at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Director, speaking about Dear John, shared, “The result is more than the sum of the smart script, effective design, and strong acting: they come together to create a deeply moving personal journey.”
Rachel Lin in Dear John at Brick Aux, 2023. Directed by Nana Dakin. Photo by Marcus Middleton.

Dear John has received development support and presentation opportunities from New York Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Museum of Chinese in America, and All For One Theater. Dear John is a 2023 Brooklyn Arts Council grantee and was presented at the Brooklyn Public Library (Bay Ridge branch) programmed by Culture Pass. Dear John’s 2026 HERE Arts Center run is presented with Small Boat Productions following highly acclaimed, sold-out, workshops at IRT Theater (2021) and the Brick Aux (2023).

Lighting design is by Yang Yu (Cracked Open), sound design is by Minjae Kim 김민재, projection design is by Ein Kim, production design is by Joyce He, costume design is by Phuong Nguyen (The Good John Proctor), dramaturgy is by Kalina Ko, and the show is Stage Managed by Sarah Jones.

Tickets for Dear John are now on sale. Special arrangements can be made for groups by emailing DearJohnPlay@gmail.com. General Admission is $29.40. Pay It Forward ($50.40), Solidarity ($92.40), and Access ($10.50) ticket pricing are also available.

For tickets and details, visit: https://here.org/shows/dear-john/. 

Please note: Masks are required for performance on March 15.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,...
Read more

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install...
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...
Read more