Publisher's Synopsis
"An Asian face on stage is significant, and signifying. So as a writer I consider it my job to try and shape how and what it signifies."
2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist Lloyd Suh is a celebrated Chinese-American playwright whose work reveals how history can exact an emotional toll across culture and time. As a writer his work explores often ignored pivotal moments of Asian American history, drawing on a variety of forms and aesthetics, from historical realism and punk rock musicals to sci-fi plays and comedies for young audiences. In his first collection of plays Suh brings to life the story of America's first female Chinese immigrant and carnival attraction, Afong Moy as well as offering an intimate epic that follows an unlikely family's journey from rural Taishan to the wild west of California in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act and a meeting of two very different cartoonists, Gyo Fujikawa and Walt Disney, in 1942. Together they offer an expressive and formally inventive look at historical and personal events in a variety of theatrical forms. From New York Times Critic's Picks and the Pulitzer Prize final shortlist to intimate one-act dramas, Suh's work is revelatory, insightful and ripe for study and enjoyment in this inaugural collection, introduced by the author himself.
