Cherry Lou Sy

Cherry Lou Sy

Cherry Lou Sy is a Chinese-Filipino writer and playwright originally from the Philippines. Her work has been developed/presented in La Mama Experiments, Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Letter of Marque, Brooklyn College, Primary Stages' ESPA, The Wild Project, The Brick, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Tank, and The Public Theater. Finalist/Semi-finalist: 2020 Emerging Writers Group at the...
Cherry Lou Sy is a Chinese-Filipino writer and playwright originally from the Philippines. Her work has been developed/presented in La Mama Experiments, Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Letter of Marque, Brooklyn College, Primary Stages' ESPA, The Wild Project, The Brick, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Tank, and The Public Theater. Finalist/Semi-finalist: 2020 Emerging Writers Group at the Public, 2020 Barbour Playwrights Award, 2020 Pipeline Theater’s PlaySpace Fellowship, 2020 Ars Nova Fellowship, the 2018 Space on Ryder Farm Working Farm and the 2017 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and nominated for the 2018 Cherry Lane Mentor Project. She performed and devised in Ping Chong's Undesirable Elements series and received her MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College where she is also a Lecturer in the English and American Studies Departments. She is also a teaching artist for PEN America’s DREAMING Out Loud facilitating creative writing classes for undocumented youth. Her debut novel LOVE CAN'T FEED YOU will be published by the Dutton imprint of Penguin Random House in Fall 2024.

If interested in reading any of the full scripts, please send me a DM in my Twitter account: @cherrylousy

Plays

  • Not For Long by Cherry Lou Sy
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    2–4
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    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 5 more
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    Keyword: Covid-19, Asian-American + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, experimental, movement/physical, period, political, satire
    Keyword: Covid-19, Asian-American, filipino, mother-daughter, generation gap, family play.
    A Filipino mother and her Americanized daughter are sheltering together in an apartment in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn during the heyday of the pandemic in New York in the spring of 2020 when no one knows what COVID is and everyone seems to be dropping like flies. Mother is a nurse working at a hospital and comes home every night in her PPE while Daughter, who loses her regular job, has to move back home and starts...
    A Filipino mother and her Americanized daughter are sheltering together in an apartment in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn during the heyday of the pandemic in New York in the spring of 2020 when no one knows what COVID is and everyone seems to be dropping like flies. Mother is a nurse working at a hospital and comes home every night in her PPE while Daughter, who loses her regular job, has to move back home and starts working as a yoga instructor doing Zoom classes. Each night is a night that seems to repeat itself in a cycle of misery and unfulfilled desires. Mother can't stay with her new boyfriend while Daughter just broke up with hers. Now they're in this apartment together with the virus looming, anti-Chinese hate rising, and Black Lives Matter movement boiling. Can they survive each other and their politics before COVID ends?
  • The Other Miss Julie by Cherry Lou Sy
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: Asian American
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, dark comedy, experimental, satire
    Keyword: Asian American
    A rehearsal and production of August Strindberg's Miss Julie gone wrong. An Asian-American woman discovering her voice.
  • paper swag by Cherry Lou Sy
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5–6
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    Genre: drama, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: high school, Immigrants + 6 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: high school, Immigrants, identity, nail salon, masculinity, asian, black, people of color
    Johnny, the son of a Khmer Rouge survivor who owns a nail salon, and Deshawn, the first kid in his family to go to college are unlikely friends going to a magnet high school in NYC. Through sheer will, they must somehow figure out how to write a college essay that will get them not just admission, but a full ride. Using Aristotle’s rules for persuasion, they show us glimpses of their lives and the lives of the...
    Johnny, the son of a Khmer Rouge survivor who owns a nail salon, and Deshawn, the first kid in his family to go to college are unlikely friends going to a magnet high school in NYC. Through sheer will, they must somehow figure out how to write a college essay that will get them not just admission, but a full ride. Using Aristotle’s rules for persuasion, they show us glimpses of their lives and the lives of the women who raise them to become men.

  • Hunger by Cherry Lou Sy
    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: fantasy, horror + 1 more
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    Keyword: post-apocalyptic, religion + 2 more
    Genre: fantasy, horror, science fiction
    Keyword: post-apocalyptic, religion, feminism, The Rapture
    It's several hundred years after the Rapture. It's just another day at the butchering shed. Or is it? Long time worker Dram advises a young Meryl to take her time with her work. They bicker as usual. When Gray and Boomer, members of the dreaded group, the Hand, come unexpectedly, Dram and Meryl's day is about to take a grim turn. A Jane is missing, and the women know something about it. Hunger is...
    It's several hundred years after the Rapture. It's just another day at the butchering shed. Or is it? Long time worker Dram advises a young Meryl to take her time with her work. They bicker as usual. When Gray and Boomer, members of the dreaded group, the Hand, come unexpectedly, Dram and Meryl's day is about to take a grim turn. A Jane is missing, and the women know something about it. Hunger is a story about power, deception, lust, and desire in a world swollen up by an apocalypse.
  • GIRL by Cherry Lou Sy
    Cast: 
    8–16
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
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    Keyword: cheating, Relationships + 3 more
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: cheating, Relationships, Alcohol, New York City, gender and sexuality
    A text-movement experimental contemplation on the relationships of contemporary men and women, and how in the act of lust we discover who we are and who we are not.