Carla Ching

Carla Ching

Carla Ching is a Chinese American native Angeleno who called NYC home for 16 years. She writes plays that interrogate why people do terrible things to people they love. Her work centers on women and people of color, especially with the endeavor to allow Asian Americans to be portrayed in their full complexity, depth and nuance, going to a different corner of the map than traditional identity plays and...
Carla Ching is a Chinese American native Angeleno who called NYC home for 16 years. She writes plays that interrogate why people do terrible things to people they love. Her work centers on women and people of color, especially with the endeavor to allow Asian Americans to be portrayed in their full complexity, depth and nuance, going to a different corner of the map than traditional identity plays and historical plays (not that there’s anything wrong with them).

Carla stumbled upon pan-Asian performance collective Peeling at the Asian American Writers Workshop and wrote, performed and produced autobiographical theater with them for three years, which she still considers her first theater training.

Her plays include The Play I’m Writing So I Don’t Die from Rage (Developed in Playtime 2022), Revenge Porn or The Story of a Body (Ammunition Theater Company 2022; Toulmin Commission for The Atlantic; O’Neill Playwrights Conference 2021), Nomad Motel (NNPN Rolling World Premiere at City Theatre, Pittsburgh, Horizon Theatre in Atlanta and Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City; NY Premiere at The Atlantic Theatre in NYC), The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up (Artists at Play, Theatre Mu), Fast Company [South Coast Rep (Heideman Award), Ensemble Studio Theatre] The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness (Ma-Yi),and TBA (2g). Carla’s full-length plays have been produced or workshopped by Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, CTG Writers’ Workshop, Huntington Theatre Company, The Kitchen, The Lark Playwrights Workshop, Lyric Stage, Ma-Yi, Midnight Rice, PFP and The Women’s Project among others.

Former artistic director of 2g. Founding member of The Kilroys and alumni member of New Dramatists. Carla is a co-recipient of the 2021 Horton Foote Playwriting Award from the Dramatist Guild with Mfoniso Udofia, Donja R. Love, Kia Corthron, and Aleshea Harris. With Ammunition Theatre Company, she was a recipient of The 2021 Los Angeles New Play Prize for the production of Revenge Porn or the Story of a Body. BA, Vassar College. MFA, New School for Drama.

Fast Company is published by Sam French and Two Kids and Nomad Motel are published by Theatre Rights Worldwide.

On television, Carla has written for Graceland, Fear the Walking Dead, I Love Dick, The First, Preacher, Home Before Dark and the forthcoming Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-created by Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover. She is currently developing a new project with Monkey Paw and Superfrog, and another project with Field Trip and Hivemind for FX.

Plays

  • The Show I'm Writing So I Don't Die From Rage by Carla Ching
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
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    Keyword: AAPI, Asian American + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    Keyword: AAPI, Asian American, cultural identity, American identity, erasure
    May goes into a big movie studio to pitch an adaptation of the next two books in the trilogy that started with that BIG ASIAN MOVIE. You know the one. When she tells them she wants to change things...it doesn't go very well. And she gets abducted and taken somewhere very scary. And she has to get out by...writing her way out. An existential comedy asking questions about who we are, how our stories and...
    May goes into a big movie studio to pitch an adaptation of the next two books in the trilogy that started with that BIG ASIAN MOVIE. You know the one. When she tells them she wants to change things...it doesn't go very well. And she gets abducted and taken somewhere very scary. And she has to get out by...writing her way out. An existential comedy asking questions about who we are, how our stories and memories make us up, and what happens when people try to take those things away from us.
  • Revenge Porn or the Story of a Body by Carla Ching
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: Asian American, Strong Female Characters + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Asian American, Strong Female Characters, Age and Body Diversity
    When Kat Chan's ex-husband posts revenge porn of her online and tags everyone she knows, she has to wrestle with a choice: be humane to someone she used to love or take him out in a very public way? A play about public shaming, ownership of womens' bodies and images, and the earthquakes that come from dissolving a marriage.
  • Nomad Motel by Carla Ching
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: youth, Asian American + 4 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: youth, Asian American, AAPI, class, Finding Home, forgiveness and home
    Alix lives in a tiny motel room with her mother and two brothers, scrabbling to make weekly rent. Mason lives comfortably in a grand, empty house while his father runs jobs for the Hong Kong Triad. Until the day his father disappears and Mason has to figure out how to come up with grocery money and dodge Child Services and the INS. Mason and Alex develop an unlikely friendship, struggling to survive, and...
    Alix lives in a tiny motel room with her mother and two brothers, scrabbling to make weekly rent. Mason lives comfortably in a grand, empty house while his father runs jobs for the Hong Kong Triad. Until the day his father disappears and Mason has to figure out how to come up with grocery money and dodge Child Services and the INS. Mason and Alex develop an unlikely friendship, struggling to survive, and trying to outrun the mistakes of their parents. Will they make it out or fall through the cracks? A play about Motel Kids and Parachute Kids raising themselves and living at the poverty line in a land of plenty.
  • The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up by Carla Ching
    Recommendations: 8
    ·
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: Love stories, AAPI + 1 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Love stories, AAPI, Asian American
    As kids, Max and Diana meet on their parents’ date, then are kicked out of the house so their parents can get it on. They are forced to play together even though they aren’t really that fond of each other. Through over two decades of their parents’ tumultuous relationship of getting together, breaking up, getting married and then divorced, Max and Diana are perpetually forced together and become the most...
    As kids, Max and Diana meet on their parents’ date, then are kicked out of the house so their parents can get it on. They are forced to play together even though they aren’t really that fond of each other. Through over two decades of their parents’ tumultuous relationship of getting together, breaking up, getting married and then divorced, Max and Diana are perpetually forced together and become the most unlikely of friends. They see each other through their own marriages and divorces, rehabs and spin-outs, career rejiggerings and epic life fails. But when they actually fall into each other, will they lose the only family they’ve ever known? A play about falling in and out of love with your best friend.
  • Fast Company by Carla Ching
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: crime, Asian American + 1 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: crime, Asian American, family
    Mable Kwan is the best grifter that ever lived. She taught sons H and Francis to be the best roper and fixer around. When youngest daughter Blue puts together the score of the decade, will they all get in on the action or who will walk away with it all?
  • TBA by Carla Ching
    Recommendations: 4
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: lies, Family Secrets + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: lies, Family Secrets, BIPOC characters, BIPOC leads, BIPOC stories
    When Silas Park’s girlfriend leaves him, he becomes a shut-in, pumping out blistering autobiographical stories in his little Brooklyn apartment. Just as Silas finds himself unexpectedly on the verge of literary stardom as the next Asian American wunderkind, his adopted brother Finn shows up on his doorstep, accusing Silas of stealing his life. A play in two acts, in the crevice between fact and fiction.
  • The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness by Carla Ching
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    When their adopted parents leave them, Greta and Han are uprooted to Chicago and find themselves in a tiny East Village apartment with their distant rock journalist uncle. In these close quarters, Greta’s rebelliousness turns dangerous. When Greta is institutionalized to learn how to control her impulses, will her treatment bring the family together or tear them apart?