AAPI Heritage Month NQTalks
We encourage you to check out our NQTalks discussion with several amazing queer Asian and Asian American theater artists: Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li, Cha See, Nina Ki, Sagan Chen, and Michael Ngo. Watch below!
NQTalks is a new series of discussions about equity, diversity, and inclusion in the theatre world and beyond!
PANEL BIOS
Originally from Taiwan, DENNIS YUEH-YEH LI (Panel Moderator, he/him/his) works as a director, playwright, performer, and performance artist. Dennis' works explore sexuality and power structure. Dennis is especially interested in adapting rarely produced modern classics by connecting them with current sociopolitical phenomenon and issues. Dennis earned his MA in Performance Studies, New York University. Dennis worked with The Living Theatre, 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. Currently, Dennis works on the artistic director team of the newly founded Al Límite Collective.
MICHAEL NGO (he/him/his) is the founding president of Voyage Company and has served as producer for all of Voyage Theater Company's mainstage productions including My Poor Marat by Aleksei Arbuzov (Canal Park Playhouse); Obama 44 by Mario Fratti (La MaMa ETC); Sun by Adrienne Kennedy(Tree House Theater); Intermission by Daniel Libman (Clurman Theater); Unveiled by Rohina Malik (NYC & South African Tour); The Mecca Tales by Rohina Malik (Sheen Center); and The Hope Hypothesis by Cat Miller (Sheen Center). Michael was instrumental in securing the 59th Street New York Public Library as the venue for VTC’s Parts Unknown Play Reading Series, and has produced six seasons of readings there. Michael also produced the world premiere of Text#Love Love#Text written and directed by Jen Emma Hertel at the C.O.W. Theater on the Lower East Side.
NINA KI (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, recorded, and presented nationwide, including with MCC Theater, Queens Theatre, Brave New World Repertory, The Classical Theater of Harlem, The Living Room Theater, the HBMG Foundation, Artists' Theater of Boston, and The Parsnip Ship. Her play “Moon Bear” was given special consideration for the Relentless Award, and her play “Taemong (Birth Dream)” was a finalist for the Van Lier Fellowship. She is also an inaugural member of The Parsnip Ship's Radio Roots Writer's Group. To contact her or learn more about her work, please visit her website at www.nina-ki.com.
CHA SEE (she/her/hers) is from Manila, Philippines. Off-Broadway credits: one in two (Signature Theatre); What To Send Up When It Goes Down (ART/NY, NE Region Tour: Woolly Mammoth, a.r.t. Boston). Other shows include: Marisol (Trinity Rep); EVERYBODY (PlayMakers Rep); The Maturation of an Inconvenient Negro (Cherry Lane); Mondo Tragic (National Black Theatre); Cute Activist (Bushwick Starr); The Triumphant (Target Margin Theatre); Nora (The Juilliard School); SKINNAMARINK; House Plant (NYTW Next Door); Then They Forgot About The Rest (Intar); In The Penal Colony (NYTW Next Door); Still Asking For It (Joe’s Pub) Regional: On The Grounds of Belonging (Long Wharf Theatre); America V2.1 (Barrington Stage); Yasmina’s Necklace (Premiere Stages); Legacy Land (Kansas City Rep) Upcoming: Exception To The Rule (Roundabout); What To Send Up When It Goes Down (BAM/ Playwrights Horizon). Training: MFA NYU Tisch. For more seelightingdesign.com @seethruuu
SAGAN CHEN (they/them) is an award-winning actor, content creator, filmmaker, and theatre artist. As a queer nonbinary chinese-american artist they center their work on uplifting underrepresented voices onstage, onscreen, and on the page. Onstage: Two Mile Hollow (Yale), Six Years Old, Stone, and delicacy of a puffin heart (Corkscrew Theater Festival), Something for the Fish (CPR), Exposed Bone (The PIT Loft). Onscreen: High Maintenance S3 (HBO), Here We Wait and Sideways Smile, a series about an Asian-American woman in her comedic journey to discover her sexuality, and is a recipient of the Made in NY Women’s Fund for Film, Television, and Theatre. Directing: Dartmouth College, Samuel French OOB Festival, Frigid Festival, Corkscrew Festival, Women in Theatre Festival. Narrator of Ana On The Edge, a YA novel about a nonbinary ice skater tween and their journey of self-discovery.They enjoy reading new scripts for various reading committees, and strive for their artistry to reflect an awareness of social responsibility and intersectionality of representation. Education: Dartmouth College, LAMDA, BLCU. diane-chen.com IG: @dianechen51