Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American poet and playwright. CNN’s “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell called her work “revolutionary.” Minnesota's Governor Mark Dayton recognized her and others with a Lao Artists Heritage Month Proclamation.
Saymoukda is currently a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, a second-term Mellon Foundation National Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu, a Jerome Foundation Fellow in playwriting, a Center for Cultural Power Fellow in narrative change, a grantee of the MN State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. She's a recent writer in residence at Hedgebrook (by invitation of the McKnight Foundation and Artist Communities Alliance) and Djerassi (by invitation of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network).
She received an...
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American poet and playwright. CNN’s “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell called her work “revolutionary.” Minnesota's Governor Mark Dayton recognized her and others with a Lao Artists Heritage Month Proclamation.
Saymoukda is currently a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, a second-term Mellon Foundation National Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu, a Jerome Foundation Fellow in playwriting, a Center for Cultural Power Fellow in narrative change, a grantee of the MN State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. She's a recent writer in residence at Hedgebrook (by invitation of the McKnight Foundation and Artist Communities Alliance) and Djerassi (by invitation of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network).
She received an Ordway Center for Performing Arts Sally Award for Initiative which recognizes “strategic leadership undertaken by an individual…that will have a significant impact on strengthening Minnesota’s artistic/cultural community.” She is the author of the children’s book When Everything Was Everything (Full Circle Publishing 2018) and is best known for plays, Kung Fu Zombies vs Cannibals (Theater Mu 2013), Hmong/Lao Friendship Play (Lazy Hmong Woman Productions 2015), Kung Fu Zombies vs Shaman Warrior (Smithsonian APAC 2016), The Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior & Cannibals (Theater Mu 2023) and In the Camps: A Refugee Musical (Refugenius 2023). Her work has been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Theater Mu, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, Lower Depth Theater, Asian Improv Arts, and elsewhere.