Esmé Maria Ng (they/she/he) is an early-career theater maker of Cantonese and Scottish descent, whose work focuses on the complexities of Asian American history, queerness and the family unit. Upon graduating with a B.A. in Theater and American Studies from Wesleyan University in 2022, Esmé was awarded the Student Script Writer Award for excellence in playwriting and the Theater Outreach and Community Service award for their contributions to the landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the performing arts.

As a playwright, Esmé seeks to embody the phenomenon of laughing at/through the pain. They look for joy in inappropriate moments, with often-understated-sometimes-surrealist aesthetics and complicated characters. Their plays have been presented by the Snug Harbor Porch Plays Festival, the Not Forgotten Play Festival, the Wesleyan University Writers Circle Reading Series, and the Entry Level Salon Reading Series. Plays include: Pearl Dust from a Gun (Eugene O’Neill Semi-Finalist, Premiere Play Festival Semi-Finalist), FISH MEAT (Lambda Literary Retreat 2023, Workshop Theater Intensive), In Loving Memory (Wesleyan Writers Circle), F*cking Harold (WPC Not Forgotten Play Festival), and First Day (Snug Harbor Porch Plays Festival). In 2023, Esmé was named as a Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow under the tutelage of Victor I. Cazares and a semi-finalist for the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship at Rattlestick Theater.

As an arts administrator, producer, dramaturg, and script evaluator, Esmé has worked at several notable theaters including Manhattan Theatre Club, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Breaking the Binary Theatre, The Playwrights Realm, Lime Arts Production Company, and Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Currently, Esmé works as the Outreach and Engagement Associate at Classic Stage Company and a freelance writer/dramaturg in New York City.