Clarity Bian

Clarity Bian 卞家昊 (she/her/她) is a playwright and poet from China, a writer of solitude and community. She is particularly interested in the ugly, the painful, and the blank. She writes for people who have failed to make it to the bright and happy stories and for things destructed and decayed. She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University School of the Arts and a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University. Her words can always be found somewhere on the internet and occasionally come alive on stage.

Clarity Bian 卞家昊 (she/her/她) is a playwright and poet from China, a writer of solitude and community. She is particularly interested in the ugly, the painful, and the blank. She writes for people who have failed to make it to the bright and happy stories and for things destructed and decayed. She holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University School of the Arts and a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University. Her words can always be found somewhere on the internet and occasionally come alive on stage.

Scripts

I've never planned to be on this earth long

by Clarity Bian

1
Cast Size
3—7
Genre
drama,
experimental,
movement/physical

I've never planned to be on this earth long by Clarity Bian was born as a personal experiment on what can be the boundaries and possibilities of forms and narratives on stage and on page. sitting at the intersection of poetry, prose, and play, the sequence is an exploration of growth, desire, romance, and diaspora. an ongoing existential crisis. a fanfiction of a life. mostly love. mostly desperation. mostly...

I've never planned to be on this earth long by Clarity Bian was born as a personal experiment on what can be the boundaries and possibilities of forms and narratives on stage and on page. sitting at the intersection of poetry, prose, and play, the sequence is an exploration of growth, desire, romance, and diaspora. an ongoing existential crisis. a fanfiction of a life. mostly love. mostly desperation. mostly hope.

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curiouser

by Clarity Bian

1
Cast Size
4
Genre
adaptation,
drama,
fantasy,
mystery/thriller

Cal, a detective, and Loli, his secret young lover, play a game of riddles. Somehow he finds that she knows all about his recent murder investigations. Loli keeps talking about a place called wonderland and Cal seems to have forgotten all about that story. Meanwhile in Wonderland, Alice and Queen are trying to figure out what’s really going on with their narrative and how they can get out of it. Inspired by...

Cal, a detective, and Loli, his secret young lover, play a game of riddles. Somehow he finds that she knows all about his recent murder investigations. Loli keeps talking about a place called wonderland and Cal seems to have forgotten all about that story. Meanwhile in Wonderland, Alice and Queen are trying to figure out what’s really going on with their narrative and how they can get out of it. Inspired by Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell’s relationship and the popularity of the children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, this play explores a young woman’s manifestation of power and autonomy through fetish and murder, characterizations and narratives.

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butterfly play

by Clarity Bian

1
Cast Size
3
Genre
adaptation,
drama,
fable/folktale

DAUGHTER meets GIRL, someone she's not supposed to love, while also coping with her family loss. a contemporary spin on Chinese folklore "The Butterfly Lovers (梁Liáng祝Zhù)." an exploration of family, loss, and self in forbidden love.

DAUGHTER meets GIRL, someone she's not supposed to love, while also coping with her family loss. a contemporary spin on Chinese folklore "The Butterfly Lovers (梁Liáng祝Zhù)." an exploration of family, loss, and self in forbidden love.

the goddess

by Clarity Bian

Cast Size
5—8
Genre
adaptation,
biography,
drama

Words can be a fearful thing. A reimagination of actress Ruan Lingyu (阮玲玉)'s life.

This play is dedicated to Rix.

Words can be a fearful thing. A reimagination of actress Ruan Lingyu (阮玲玉)'s life.

This play is dedicated to Rix.

Eons

by Clarity Bian

Cast Size
3—6
Genre
drama

Eons cuts the stories of three women and mixes them back into one: a god, a witch, and a teenager with a husband, a lover, and a friend. Back at the beginning of everything, LUCY wakes up and becomes a mother. Not far from the present, JANE starts a cleansing diet, in hope that she survives a catastrophe she cannot understand. Somewhere in the dark, MARY vows to hunt down the group of men who murdered her former...

Eons cuts the stories of three women and mixes them back into one: a god, a witch, and a teenager with a husband, a lover, and a friend. Back at the beginning of everything, LUCY wakes up and becomes a mother. Not far from the present, JANE starts a cleansing diet, in hope that she survives a catastrophe she cannot understand. Somewhere in the dark, MARY vows to hunt down the group of men who murdered her former lover. But time waits for no one. Their problems seem just overdue enough to be eternal, but the world can never be the same. So now LUCY, JANE, and MARY come to the bar. They drink, they talk. Mostly they don’t know what to do, but maybe they’ll share their secrets too.

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