Jessica Huang
Jessica Huang
 
 
 

Blended 和 (Harmony): The Kim Loo Sisters Musical

Synopsis

The children of a Polish immigrant and Chinese “Paper Son,” the Kim Loo Sisters, raised in Minneapolis, attended the same dance classes as the Andrews Sisters. Alice, Maggie, Jenée, and Bubbles’ singing and dancing vaudeville routines took them to Broadway, Hollywood, and the world on the USO circuit during World War II; they shared billing with Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason and Ann Miller. These extraordinary women could have been famous, inspiring generations of hapa (mixed-race Asian) girls. Today, their names are forgotten. The Kim Loo Sisters Musical tells the true story of the Sisters and juxtapose the Hollywood glamour of the 1930s and 40s with darker realities for artists of color during the era of Chinese Exclusion, Internment Camps and anti-miscegenation laws. 

PRODUCTION HISTORY

History Theatre & Theater Mu (2024)

Developmental HISTORY

Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Ground Floor Summer Lab (2019)
New York Stage and Film (2021)
Commission, History Theatre & Theater Mu

Quotes/Reviews

  • “While the script navigates moments of levity akin to "Little Women" and the soulful resonance of "Dreamgirls," it also confronts poignant themes of stereotyping, discrimination, and racism with unflinching honesty. The musical score, a blend of infectious upbeat tunes and poignant ballads, further enriches the narrative tapestry of the production.” Jared Fessler, Broadway World

  • “A heart-warming story of family and identity, told with a fabulous swing era score.” Cherry and Spoon

  • “Greywoode and Huang have a strong song partnership, and Huang's libretto is by turns sweet, inspiring and occasionally edgy.” Rohan Preston, Star Tribune

  • “Delivers genuine entertainment with some social history tucked in” Arthur Dorman Talkin’ Broadway

Photographed by Rich Ryan

Photographed by Scott Pakudaitis

The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin

Synopsis

During the Chinese Exclusion Act, Harry Chin, a Chinese national, entered the U.S. by buying forged documentation. Like other “Paper Sons,” Harry underwent a brutal detention and interrogation, and lived the rest of his life keeping secrets – even from his daughter. Told through the eyes of a middle-aged Chin, THE PAPER DREAMS OF HARRY CHIN reveals the complicated loves and regrets of this Chinese immigrant who wound up in Minnesota. Through dreamlike leaps of time and space and with the powerful assistance of ghosts, the story of the Chin family reveals the personal and political repercussions of making group of people “illegal.”

Production history

San Francisco Playhouse, San Francisco CA 2022
Indiana Repertory Theater, Indianapolis IN 2022
WORLD PREMIERE: History Theatre, Saint Paul MN 2017
TimePieces Play Reading, TimeLine Theatre, Chicago IL 2017

Awards

  • Stavis Award 2018

  • Kilroy List 2017

  • Susan Smith Blackburn nominee

  • Minneapolis Star Tribune Best of the Week

Quotes/Reviews

  • “[a] beautifully written time-traveling play” Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle

  • “Harry is a man haunted... That might not sound like the description of a show that frequently ventures into comedic territory, but playwright Huang is wise enough to know that the audience needs a breather from all the heavy family drama and strange goings-on that may or may not be supernatural.” Charles Lewis III, 48 Hills

  • “rewarding new play "The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin" offers a complex telling of a complex life” Ed Hyuck, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  • “a surreal journey through past and present that is touching, funny, harrowing, confusing—and ultimately worth seeing.” Kip Dooley, Minnesota Playlist

  • “Huang’s superb storytelling keeps us engaged with this complex, and all too timely, tale.” Jay Gabler, City Pages

  • “The play never fails to hold interest, but some scenes soar in their power. One is the interrogation scene as Harry arrives at the Seattle point of entry, feverishly hoping for his "paper son" deception to work. As Harry does not yet know English, we hear the interrogator as Harry does—an outpouring of gibberish, presented as fierce animalistic roars, grunts and whistles, amplified like the powerful Wizard of Oz.” Arthur Dorman, Talkin Broadway

  • It’s easy to remark on the timeliness of this production—with current immigration policy trying to prohibit another specific group from being allowed into the US, its place in the season is almost uncanny. While timely and relevant sound like operable words, it’s more than just that. Stories like this keep repeating themselves and American history is full of them. It’s timely because prejudice and xenophobia never stopped being a problem and because it’s a story we still fail to remember. However, Harry Chin’s will haunt you, just like the ghosts who fill up his kitchen. You won’t be able to forget him once you leave the theater. And, like me, you might walk out feeling hungry—for knowledge, for diversity, for answers, for change.” The Room Where it Happens

Song of the Northwoods

Synopsis

After a betrayal at work costs Song Kuan her job, she retreats to her friend Lucy’s idyllic family cabin on a lake in Minnesota to lick her wounds. She devotes herself to recording Ice Cold Cases, a true crime podcast which she and Lucy co-host with the gleeful energy of obsessed fans—until an anonymous tip about a missing person case disrupts their equilibrium. Then Lucy disappears, leaving Song alone in an unfriendly and unfamiliar town, where locals don’t take kindly to strangers asking questions. Twisty, unpredictable, and sonically adventurous, Song of the Northwoods will keep you guessing until the final showdown.

Developmental HISTORY

Commission, Audible

Awards

  • Named one of Audible’s Best of 2022

Listen to Song of the Northwoods Here.

Mother of Exiles

SYNOPSIS

In 1898 California, a pregnant Eddie Loi faces deportation. In 1998 Miami, her grandson Braulio accidentally summons her spirit while patrolling the border. In 2063 somewhere on the ocean, their descendants try to survive the climate crisis. An epic multigenerational tale of sacrifice, love and survival that spans 150 years in 90 minutes.

DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY

Reading, Alliance/Kendeda Week (May 2021)
Reading, Two River Theater (April 2021)
Reading, Annual Showcase of new plays National New Play Network (November 2020)
Festival, PlayLabs The Playwrights Center (October 2020)
Reading, The New Group (July 2020) as a part of their Facing the Rising Tide festival
Workshop, New York Stage and Film’s fall season (November 2019)
Workshop, The Old Globe (October 2019)
Workshop, Chance Theater
Development, Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival

Awards

  • 2020 Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award

  • 2020 Rosa Parks Playwriting award

  • Finalist for the 2020 Kendeda Prize

Purple Cloud

Synopsis

When you’re hapa, you know deep down you’re greater than the sum of your many parts. In Purple Cloud, three generations of Huangs deal with the multifacets of their multiracial identities as—accompanied by four Jade Pieces—they embark on a mythical journey from China to Minnesota and back again. Through three intertwining stories, the Huang family acculturates: Grandpa Lee emigrates from Shanghai to America during the Sino-Japanese War; his son Orville deals with his confusion as a first generation Asian American; and his granddaughter fights for her Chinese-ness through the search for her true name.

Quotes/Reviews

  • “a thoughtful and ultimately universal exploration of what it means to belong.” Lisa Brock, Star Tribune

  • “a thoroughly entertaining and moving work.” Ed Huyck, City Pages

  • “a beautiful play, with the rare kind of script that strikes you instantly with the excellence of its writing.” Compendium

  • “one of the most powerful and moving scenes I’ve witnessed in theater. It pulled together the various threads of the play in the ways that only true art can. By the play’s end, I realized I had just witnessed something unprecedented, something—contrary to Hewitt’s generalizing and unfocused eye—entirely new: The birth of a hapa tradition.” David Mura, Op Ed, Pioneer Press

Production HIstory

Asian American Theatre Project, Stanford CA 2017
Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists, Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2016 (remount of Mu production)
PREMIERE: Mu Performing Arts, Minneapolis MN 2015

Awards

  • Susan Smith Blackburn Nominee

  • Kilroy List Honorable Mention

  • Source Festival finalist

Photographed by Keri Pickett

Photographed by Becky Stein

Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying

SYNOPSIS

Transmission in Advance of the Second Great Dying tells an epic tale of grief and global warming through the intersecting lives of Earth’s human and non-human inhabitants in 2045. Katrina and her unborn baby head north in search of snow; Hugo seeks purpose in a world without resources; and after a series of unnatural events, recently widowed Carla is swept into a cosmic relationship with an ageless being that challenges her understanding of time and extinction. Together with a young lynx and a swarm of locusts, their journeys become transmissions of hope and loss against the backdrop of planetary collapse.

Developmental HISTORY

Production, Emory University (November 2022)
Production, Juilliard Playwrights Festival (September 2019)
Workshop, Chance Theater (March 2019)
Reading, New York Theatre Workshop (November 2018)
Workshop, The Playwrights' Center
Commission, Mixed Blood Theatre

AWARDS

  • 2021-22 Earth Matters On Stage Ecodrama Playwrights Festival Award

Zero-Infinity Flight Path

Synopsis

Zero-Infinity Flight Path begins at the end of a journey to the top of a mysterious mountain. A girl, her mother, and a guide must climb to enact a sacrifice for the salvation of those at the base. But the closer the girl gets to completing her journey, the more she begins to question its validity, causing the entire party to contend with crises of doubt and questions of free will. ZERO-INFINITY FLIGHT PATH digs into the paradoxes of Systems and Institutions, and the moments when it is critical to listen to the small individual inner voice of truth. It seeks to highlight the dangerous compromises we make daily - do we listen to a dogmatic group or listen to ourselves? Do we follow orders or our instincts?

Awards

  • Bay Area Playwrights Festival semi-finalist

  • Eugene O'Neill New Playwrights Conference semi-finalist

Photographed by Augsburg College

Photographed by Jenna Papke

Of Milk and Mirrors (one act)

Synopsis

OF MILK AND MIRRORS is a play about love that puts my real-life marriage on stage—and toys with truth by transforming the character of my husband into seven others (including writer Jorge Luis Borges and philosopher Alexius Meinong).

OF MILK AND MIRRORS was originally commissioned by Atlantic Theater Company; Neil Pepe Artistic Director Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director

The Journalists’ Creed: (Actual) Emails from a (Brief) Career in News (one act)

Synopsis

Written completely with "found text" - actual emails sent and received between the years 2005 and 2013 - THE JOURNALISTS’ CREED is a strange semi-autobiographical exploration of post-college career and first love. An experiment with representing truth and fact on stage.

Photographed by Jenna Papke

The Birth of the Pill

Synopsis

Katharine McCormick and Margaret Sanger schemed for decades about a pill that women could swallow like aspirin that would grant total autonomy over their fertility. To achieve this feat, they need to team up with maverick scientist Gregory Pincus and charismatic gynecologist John Rock - and find willing human test subjects from New Hampshire to Puerto Rico. Based on the book by Jonathan Eig, The Birth of the Pill depicts the transformation in science, society and possibilities for women that came alongside the invention of the birth control pill, made ever more complex by the link between the pill and the Eugenics movement.

Developmental HISTORY

Commission, TimeLine Theatre Company
Workshop, New York Stage and Film’s Winter Season, 2023