Yilong Liu

Yilong Liu

​Yilong is a Lila Acheson Wallace American playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School. His play The Book of Mountains and Seas received the Lambda Literary Award for Drama. His play Good Enemy had its premiere off-Broadway at Minetta Lane Theatre as part of Audible Theater’s 22/23 season. Yilong is a Core Writer at Playwrights’ Center and an alumnus of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood. He has developed...
​Yilong is a Lila Acheson Wallace American playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School. His play The Book of Mountains and Seas received the Lambda Literary Award for Drama. His play Good Enemy had its premiere off-Broadway at Minetta Lane Theatre as part of Audible Theater’s 22/23 season. Yilong is a Core Writer at Playwrights’ Center and an alumnus of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood. He has developed work with Ojai Playwrights Conference, Kennedy Center, and SPACE on Ryder Farm, among many others. Yilong is currently writing under commission for the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Sloan Initiative. Plays include We Borrowed Brokenness (The Juilliard School, Alliance Theatre/Kendeda Playwriting Award Finalist), The Book of Mountains and Seas (Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award), June is the First Fall (Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, Yangtze Rep, Kumu Kahua Theatre), Joker (Po’okela Award, Kumu Kahua Theatre), Flood in The Valley, a Bilingual Folk Musical (Beijing Tianqiao Theatre Center, Gung Ho Project), PrEP Play (New Conservatory Theatre Center), and Good Enemy (Audible, Ojai Playwrights Festival). Yilong grew up in China and received his MFA from the University of Hawai‘i.

When he’s not writing, he’s usually cooking, people watching, or liking cat pics on Instagram.

Plays

  • The Book of Mountains and Seas by Yilong Liu
    Recommendations: 12
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: LGBTQ, family + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: LGBTQ, family, loss, cultural differences, generational divide, immigration, globalization, magical realism, grief, mythology
    Two years after losing his son, a California dad teams up with his son's last boyfriend in New York on an impossible mission to visit all the restaurants reviewed on his son's Yelp page. When the son passed away, Yelp was the only thing left on his phone. What ensues is an adventure filled with clashing cultures, unlikely friendships, and the review of a lifetime.
  • PrEP Play, or, Blue Parachute by Yilong Liu
    Recommendations: 8
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: Truvada, HIV + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction
    Keyword: Truvada, HIV, queer, History, aids, 1980s, millennials, magical realism, LGBTQ, intergenerational
    What if you had the chance to rewrite history? Erik’s world is thrown into free-fall when he’s pulled into a wondrously bizarre time-traveling journey by Agent 701 (aka his now-sentient PrEP pill). Landing into the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, Erik finds himself in a race against history to save a life lost decades ago. From award-winning playwright Yilong Liu comes a contemporary queer fantasia that examines the...
    What if you had the chance to rewrite history? Erik’s world is thrown into free-fall when he’s pulled into a wondrously bizarre time-traveling journey by Agent 701 (aka his now-sentient PrEP pill). Landing into the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, Erik finds himself in a race against history to save a life lost decades ago. From award-winning playwright Yilong Liu comes a contemporary queer fantasia that examines the ghosts of our past and the hopes for our future.
  • June is The First Fall by Yilong Liu
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Asian American, Hawaii + 7 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Asian American, Hawaii, gay, immigration, Chinese American, LGBTQ, family, forgiveness, memory
    What compels people to cross mountains and seas to another country, another continent, and another culture to find their true selves? What are the journeys we take to find home and belonging? In JUNE IS THE FIRST FALL, Don, a gay Chinese man, returns home to Hawaii to rediscover missing memories of himself and his family that he moved away from. His week-long stay opens wounds with his father and sister that...
    What compels people to cross mountains and seas to another country, another continent, and another culture to find their true selves? What are the journeys we take to find home and belonging? In JUNE IS THE FIRST FALL, Don, a gay Chinese man, returns home to Hawaii to rediscover missing memories of himself and his family that he moved away from. His week-long stay opens wounds with his father and sister that never healed, aggravating Don's struggle to find love and belonging in his life.
  • Joker by Yilong Liu
    Recommendations: 5
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: LGBTQ, Hawaii + 7 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: LGBTQ, Hawaii, asian, chinese, marriage equality, grief, loneliness, gay, Filipino American
    A Filipino gay writer and activist settles into a straight marriage in Hawai'i to keep a promise he's made. The tenuous calm is rocked by the arrival of a former friend of his from the Philippines. Will the life he carefully constructed crush around him? Set during the run-up to marriage equality in Hawai'i, Joker explores love, loss and the power of our promises.
  • Lily by Yilong Liu
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: science, mythology + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: science, mythology, China, HIV, genetic engineering
    Inspired by the story of the world's first genetically edited babies in China, whose genes have been altered so they could not contract HIV. Lily tells the story of a girl who has to face her past when her future has never been certain in this world of myth, science, and loneliness.