In this online interview, I was asked to characterize my work.  Talk about my journey.  It's hard to reflect when you are still on that journey, and every day is a deeper discovery to who you are.  But if I am forced to look at the body of my work thus far, I would say that I am a woman who strives for a world that is just and equal.  I tell small intimate stories that cry out for justice in hopes that it will have a larger impact on the whole.  I am a woman who works to make beautiful the hard thorny stories of people who live outside the margins, who have never been part of a privileged class, who often struggle with their own identity amidst adversity.  I am also a woman who finds a lot of joy in the world and tries to bring that sense of play to production as well as in the rehearsal hall.  I am a woman who tries to make a connection to those I don't understand so that it might make me a fuller, more empathetic, richer person.  I am a woman who believes that small ripples eventually make a wave.  And every gesture of kindness manifests into something greater than itself.  And that theater, even in its tiny black box spaces, is part of that great movement.  


** Features work by Katori Hall, A. Rey Pamatmat, Sarah Schlessinger and Mike Reid, JC Lee and Thomas Bradshaw.   

Busy few weeks! Early November i did a workshop of GIRL SHAKES LOOSE HER SKIN, a powerful, soul shaking new musical about an overeducated black girl learning how to overcome who she is supposed to be to be what she is. A journey into a woman's soul as she traverses New York to Atlanta to San Francisco. An amazing piece of theater with music by Imani Uzuri, book by Zakiyyah Alexander based on poetry by Sonia Sanchez. Look out for another iteration at Joe's Pub in February.

I then recently opened and closed a new play devised by Qui Nguyen, myself and the NYU MFA acting class of 2015 titled FIVE DAYS TIL SATURDAY. Dragons, Y2K panic, savvy late 90s hip hop and yes that IS a large floating head of Matthew McConaughey circa Dazed and Confused.

Most recently, I directed a reading of Vietgone by Qui Nguyen at New Dramatists and also South Coast Rep. Summed up by the playwright, it's a sex comedy about his parents. And no, you can't tell them he wrote it - seriously don't tell his parents. . It's a romantic comedy. Yet it's set in an uncertain scary time just after the fall of Saigon in a refugee camp in Arkansas. and oh yeah, there is a big motorcycle road trip, a fight sequence and a romantic montage set to Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On."

Now currently taking a break in Dubai. See you in a few weeks!

Top right: Zakiyyah Alexander, Jaime Lincoln Smith, Mckenzie Frye, Imani Uzuri, May Adrales & Nikiya Mathis. Next: rough model of In the Next Room at Syracuse Stage by Mikiko Suzuki; Next: Reading of Vietgone at SCR: Rodney To, Raymond Lee, Paco Tolson, Qui Nguyen, May Adrales, Maureen Sebastian & Jackie Chung. Next: rough preliminary model of Five Days Till Saturday by Hui Chen; Next: Rehearsal for Vietgone: Maureen Sebastian, Paco Tolson and Jackie Chung.