Thinking Theater NYC

Sky of Darkness Written by Siting Yang Directed by Rakesh Palisetty Produced by Zhe Pan and Devin Ray Ramirez at Theaterlab 357 W 36th St, 3rd floor, Manhattan, NYC June 2-12, 2022 L TO R: HanJie Chow and Malcolm Opoku in Sky of Darkness . Photo by Maria Baranova Playwright Siting Yang's Sky of Darkness , currently in its world premiere run at Theaterlab, begins with talk of rivers: the Charles River, the Niger River, even the sky as a kind of river. These invocations are fitting not only because Yang's play loosely adapts Joseph Conrad's 1899 river-journey novella Heart of Darkness but also because their simultaneous embodiment of stasis and change, fixed place and ceaseless movement, nicely mirrors the dynamics of neo-imperialism (as well as, perhaps, of personal histories) that Sky of Darkness explores. As part of this exploration, the program notes, "the work is based on actual, first-person accounts of Chinese nationals who found themselves in the service of a h...

June is the First Fall Written by Yilong Liu Directed by Michael Leibenluft Presented by Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America at the New Ohio Theatre March 31-April 20, 2019 L to R: Alton Alburo, Chun Cho, Karsten Otto, and Stefani Kuo in  June is the First Fall . Photo Credit: Maria Baranova One of the first sounds that the audience hears in Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America’s production of Yilong Liu’s June is the First Fall is the engines of a jetliner, as young, gay Chinese man Don (Alton Alburo) returns from New York City to his family home in Hawai’i’s Manoa Valley. Don’s flight stands in for the various cross-cultural and geographical axes that impact the characters in this play; and with June is the First Fall , second-prize winner of the Kennedy Center’s 2017 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, making its New York premier, Yangtze Rep, in its 27th year, “hope[s] to give more prominence to queer Asian and Asian-American narratives” in a year that also marks ...