Lauren Yee

Lauren Yee

Lauren Yee's play KING OF THE YEES premiered this past season at The Goodman Theatre and Center Theatre Group. Upcoming: CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, a play with music by Dengue Fever, at South Coast Rep; THE GREAT LEAP at Denver Center, Seattle Rep, New York Stage and Film, and Atlantic Theatre Company; and KING OF THE YEES at ACT Theatre and Canada's National Arts Centre. Other plays include CHING CHONG...
Lauren Yee's play KING OF THE YEES premiered this past season at The Goodman Theatre and Center Theatre Group. Upcoming: CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, a play with music by Dengue Fever, at South Coast Rep; THE GREAT LEAP at Denver Center, Seattle Rep, New York Stage and Film, and Atlantic Theatre Company; and KING OF THE YEES at ACT Theatre and Canada's National Arts Centre. Other plays include CHING CHONG CHINAMAN (Pan Asian, Mu Performing Arts), THE HATMAKER'S WIFE (Playwrights Realm, Moxie, PlayPenn), HOOKMAN (Encore, Company One), IN A WORD (SF Playhouse, Cleveland Public, Strawdog), SAMSARA (Victory Gardens, O'Neill Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival), and THE TIGER AMONG US (MAP Fund, Mu).

She was a Dramatists Guild fellow, a MacDowell fellow, a MAP Fund grantee, a member of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, a Time Warner Fellow at the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, the Shank playwright-in-residence at Second Stage Theatre, a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, and the Page One resident playwright at Playwrights Realm. IN A WORD won the Francesca Primus Prize and was a finalist for the ATCA/Steinberg Award. THE HATMAKER'S WIFE was an Outer Critics Circle nominee for the John Gassner Award for best play by a new American playwright. Her work has been published by Samuel French.

Member of the Ma-Yi Writers' Lab. Commissions: Geffen Playhouse, Lincoln Center/LCT3, Mixed Blood, Portland Center Stage, and Trinity Rep. BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD. www.laurenyee.com

Plays

  • Cambodian Rock Band
    Part comedy, part mystery, part rock concert, this thrilling story toggles back and forth in time, as father and daughter face the music of the past. Neary, a young Cambodian American has found evidence that could finally put away the Khmer Rouge’s chief henchman. But her work is far from done. When Dad shows up unannounced—his first return to Cambodia since fleeing 30 years ago—it’s clear this isn’t just a pleasure trip.
  • The Great Leap
    When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for an exhibition game in 1989, the drama on the court goes deeper than the strain between their countries. For two men with a past and one teen with a future, it’s a chance to stake their moment in history and claim personal victories off the scoreboard. American coach Saul grapples with his relevance to the sport, Chinese coach Wen Chang must decide...
    When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for an exhibition game in 1989, the drama on the court goes deeper than the strain between their countries. For two men with a past and one teen with a future, it’s a chance to stake their moment in history and claim personal victories off the scoreboard. American coach Saul grapples with his relevance to the sport, Chinese coach Wen Chang must decide his role in his rapidly-changing country and Chinese American player Manford seeks a lost connection. Tensions rise right up to the final buzzer as history collides with the action in the stadium. Inspired by events in the life of the playwright’s own father.
  • King of the Yees
    The affable Larry Yee remains a driving force in the San Francisco Chinese American community as the head of the Yee Family Association, a seemingly obsolescent men's club dedicated to the preservation of the Yee line. His daughter Lauren, however, is dismissive of its patriarchal culture policy, despite her father’s lifelong dedication to the group. When Larry suddenly goes missing, Lauren’s desperate...
    The affable Larry Yee remains a driving force in the San Francisco Chinese American community as the head of the Yee Family Association, a seemingly obsolescent men's club dedicated to the preservation of the Yee line. His daughter Lauren, however, is dismissive of its patriarchal culture policy, despite her father’s lifelong dedication to the group. When Larry suddenly goes missing, Lauren’s desperate search drops her into a strange but familiar world where she will have to embrace the past in order to get her father back. Explore the vivid history of America’s largest Chinatown through the eyes of a new generation in Lauren Yee’s hilarious and touching celebration of family.
  • Hookman
    Freshman year at college is hard when your roommate is weird, you’re feeling homesick, and a hook-handed serial killer is slashing girls’ throats. But if Lexi can discover what really happened to her high school best friend on that car ride to the movies, everything will be okay. In this existential slasher comedy, Lexi and her friends learn what it means to grow up – and it’s not pretty.
  • The Tiger Among Us
    For Lia and her ghetto wannabe brother Pao, being the only Hmong kids in town is tough; it’s even tougher when that town happens to be in outstate Minnesota. And when a stranger’s arrival in the midst of hunting season threatens their tenuous existence, Lia finds herself caught between her family and her dreams in this modern-day midwestern folktale about a Hmong American family and the tenuous bonds that tie us together.
  • in a word
    For Fiona, today is the two-year anniversary of her young son’s disappearance. And still, nothing makes sense. Not her blasé husband, the incompetent detective, or the neighborhood kidnapper who keeps introducing himself in the checkout line. But when her son’s case is on the brink of being declared “cold,” Fiona delves back into her memories of that fateful day, to uncover that crucial missing piece. in a word...
    For Fiona, today is the two-year anniversary of her young son’s disappearance. And still, nothing makes sense. Not her blasé husband, the incompetent detective, or the neighborhood kidnapper who keeps introducing himself in the checkout line. But when her son’s case is on the brink of being declared “cold,” Fiona delves back into her memories of that fateful day, to uncover that crucial missing piece. in a word chronicles Fiona’s attempts to make sense of the past, as grief and comedy collide, and ordinary turns of phrase take on dangerous new meanings.
  • Samsara
    Katie and Craig are having a baby… with a surrogate… who lives in India. A month before the baby’s due date, Craig reluctantly travels to the subcontinent, where he meets Suraiya, their young, less-than-thrilled surrogate. As all three “parents” anxiously wait for the baby to be born, flights of fancy attack them from all sides, in the form of an unctuous Frenchman and a smart-mouthed fetus. A whimsical take on...
    Katie and Craig are having a baby… with a surrogate… who lives in India. A month before the baby’s due date, Craig reluctantly travels to the subcontinent, where he meets Suraiya, their young, less-than-thrilled surrogate. As all three “parents” anxiously wait for the baby to be born, flights of fancy attack them from all sides, in the form of an unctuous Frenchman and a smart-mouthed fetus. A whimsical take on modern day colonialism.