Rebs Chan

Rebs Chan

Rebs (Rebecca) Chan is a playwright, sound designer, and performance artist based in the Bay Area and metro Detroit. Originally from Howell, MI, they recently graduated from Kalamazoo College with honors in Theatre Arts and completed a year teaching abroad in Taiwan. Across their artistic work, their prime objective is intersectionality, creating and supporting theatre that is intersectional in both...
Rebs (Rebecca) Chan is a playwright, sound designer, and performance artist based in the Bay Area and metro Detroit. Originally from Howell, MI, they recently graduated from Kalamazoo College with honors in Theatre Arts and completed a year teaching abroad in Taiwan. Across their artistic work, their prime objective is intersectionality, creating and supporting theatre that is intersectional in both representation and artistic form.

They are currently Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Peter F. Sloss Artistic Fellow. They also serve as an outside reader for Playwrights Horizons in New York.

Rebs has written and presented original work through Yun Theatre, Festival Playhouse, Queer Theatre Kalamazoo, the Theatre Kalamazoo New Playfest, and the Asian American Music Video Fest.

Rebs has written and presented original work through Festival Playhouse, Queer Theatre Kalamazoo, and the Theatre Kalamazoo New Playfest.

Plays

  • Afterlife
    What if the afterlife is a big, sterile, ever-changing and confusing international airport? At Chicago O'Hare, Meimei stumbles into a surprise encounter with her deceased grandmother. The two pause their search for home to enjoy, for a few fleeting moments, the both frustrating and profound home they have in each other. A 10-minute play bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese.
  • Unzipped
    Unzipped, an original one-person show of alternating music and monologues, explores the perception of East Asians in the dominant United States’ culture and Rebs' own coming-of-age as a queer Chinese-American. After growing up in small-town Michigan, they head off to slightly-larger-town Michigan for college. Then, their grandmother's death in 2020 launches a search for belonging and identity,...
    Unzipped, an original one-person show of alternating music and monologues, explores the perception of East Asians in the dominant United States’ culture and Rebs' own coming-of-age as a queer Chinese-American. After growing up in small-town Michigan, they head off to slightly-larger-town Michigan for college. Then, their grandmother's death in 2020 launches a search for belonging and identity, navigating tumultuous friendships and relationships as resurfacing white supremacist violence threatens them and their family.

    The show is best described as a theatre-concert: theatrical storytelling intertwined with dynamic, staged musical performance. The music all exists in the realm of indie folk and indie rock, composed for a band with keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums.

    The title of the show, and the show's main metaphor, are derived from the anti-Asian slur "z*pperhead." To be be seen as a “z*pperhead” or “zipped” is to be seen as an other, someone different and barbaric and an enemy to democracy. To be “unzipped” is to somehow shed that perception, being seen as an individual, not the stereotype. The major dramatic question is, “Is it possible to unzip? And how do you do it?”
  • Pam
    Written for Queer Theatre Kalamazoo's PlaywrightNow: A #StillProud Event, a 24-hour short play event, Pam tells the story of two Pam's, each trying to prove that they are the real Pam hired at the Homeless Housing for Homosexuals.
  • Traitor Joe's
    After discovering a breakup song on Lizzie's Valentine's Day playlist, Jen uses the mysterious motives of a mutual friend, Blaire, to stir the pot while Lizzie attempts to preserve their relationship.
  • Record
    Aly has no memory, except those included in her journals. Gale, a foolhardy stranger, attempts to her her work through her past. The two explore memory, grief, mental health, and forgiveness.