The Playwrights Database
EUGENIE CHAN
(1962 - )Nationality: USA
email: Click here to contact Website: n/a
Literary Agent: Brant Rose Agency represented by Toochis Morin
Eugenie Chan is a 5th generation San Franciscan whose forefathers sold slippers in Chinatown, dry goods in the desert, and love in the bordellos. No wonder her plays tend to mix up language, reality, tradition, and history. Her work includes MAdame Ho; Kitchen Table; Bone to Pick; Diadem; Tontlawald; Daphne Does Dim Sum; Rancho Grande; emil, a Chinese Play; Novell-aah!; Pilgrim; Consent; Circus; and opera libretti, Courtside and Snakewoman. Theatres that have produced or developed her plays include, east Coast; the Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Centenary Stage, Pan Asian Rep, and Perishable Theatre and; on the West Coast: Cutting Ball Theater, Thick Description, Magic Theatre, Bay area Playwrights Festival, Northwest Asian American Theatre, Group Theatre, east West Players, Asian American Theater Company, and Houston Grand Opera: HGOco. eugenie has received commissions from HGOco, the Magic Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Initiative, Cutting Ball, and the San Francisco Foundation; awards from Mixed Blood Theatre, NYU; residencies from Sundance, Hedgebrook; grants from the the John Golden Fund/Lippmann Family New Frontier award, San Francisco Arts Commission, the San Francisco and Wallace Foundations, TBa New Works, Ca$H; and fellowships from the Berilla Kerr, affymax, Tournesol, Film Arts, and George Lucas educational Foundations. Her work is published in Alexander Street Press Asian American Drama and North American Women Writers and Lexington Books embodiments of Asian/American and Pacific Islander/American Sexualities. She is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and the Cutting Ball Theater. eugenie has also written political satire for the San Francisco Mime Troupe and screenplays which have been finalists for Nicholl and Cinestory Fellowships. She holds a Ba in Literature from Yale and an MFA from NYU.
Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
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below is a list of Eugenie Chan's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Bone To Pick B'Umblebee Circus (Or Mah-Heih!) Consent Daphne Does Dim Sum Diadem Emil, A Chinese Play Esmerelda Fan, The Kitchen Table Madame Ho Novell-Aah! Pilgrim Rainbow In Your Corner Rancho Grande Snakewoman Tour Sino Willy Gee!Bone To Pick
Synopsis:
a postmodern adaptation of the myth of ariadne: Prince theseus promises to marry ariadne if she helps him through the labyrinth to kill her half-brother, the Minotaur. Mission accomplished, he abandons her on a desert island, where for the last 3000 years, shes been waiting tables in a Diner at the end of a battle-worn world. What is the price of love and war?
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1st Produced:
Cutting Ball Theatre 2008
Organisations:
Cutting Ball Theater
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Genre:
one act
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageB'Umblebee
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageCircus (Or Mah-Heih!)
Synopsis:
Based on interviews with Chinese from different generations of immigration to the United States, this play explores what Chinese Americans desire in the performing Arts. the immigrants are re-imagined as acrobats in the circus that is life in America.
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1st Produced:
Staged Reading: Self-Help For The Elderly, San Francisco 2009
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Genre:
one act comedy
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageConsent
Synopsis:
Two daughters confront the risks of enrolling their dying Father in a new cancer therapy, only to pick at old family wounds. Unable to move or communicate, Dad still proves that love rules the day
Notes:
Staged readings: the exploratorium (2008, 2007); Magic theatre (2007).
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Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageDaphne Does Dim Sum
Synopsis:
Watch Daphne and Bessie, two seventy-something Chinese American ladies-who-lunch, duke it out for the pride of paying the bill at their weekly gossipfests - until a man comes between them. a hilarious comedy about old pals and new enemies - boxing match and sight gags included.
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1st Produced:
Centenary Stage Company 2008
Organisations:
Centenary Stage Company
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageDiadem
Synopsis:
Bone to Picks romantic companion piece. after a dream-come-true honeymoon night, giddy teen ariadne waits for her husband theseus who never returns. a revenge play of sorts.
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1st Produced:
Cutting Ball Theatre 2011
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Genre:
one act
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageEmil, A Chinese Play
Synopsis:
a young South American journeys through the United States, into the heart of Chinatown, and lands in the arms of Mother, the quintessential Chinese uber-mom, who will do anything, anything at all, to find her spinster daughter a man. a sweet comedy about lonely hearts and the American dream.
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1st Produced:
Staged Reading: Pan Asian Repertory Theater, New York 1992
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: assorted Family Members
Further Reference:
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Top of PageEsmerelda
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1st Produced:
Night Of A 1,000 Playwrights, Rain City Project, Seattle 1997
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Genre:
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageFan, The
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1st Produced:
Yale University, New Haven 1984
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
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Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageKitchen Table
Synopsis:
Kitchen Table is a haiku of a play. It says much, with very little - a family, a friend, a dinner table. This powerful Drama follows the heartbreak of Nicky Wong, a young Corvette-crazy Chinese American man, through the demise of the familys traditional Chinese before dinner grace. When Nickys obsession with his Vette and the white mechanic who helps him fix it gets in the way of the family dinner, a battle between son and Father ignites, as Nicky struggles to carve out his version of manhood - in and outside the tradition.
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1st Produced:
Workshop: Magic Theatre 2005
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Genre:
dark comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageMadame Ho
Synopsis:
Madame Ho, a full-length drama, tells the story of a formidable woman in the Barbary Coast a real-life 19th-century brothel madam, Chinese immigrant, wife, mother, and this playwrights great-grandmother. Madame Ho explores the epic history of the Chinese American West through a shape-shifting tale of one woman's struggle to forge a life for herself and her daughter a story about survival and complicity.
Notes:
Nominated for The Kilroys 2015. The Kilroys is a group of playwrights and producers in LA who publish an annual industry survey of excellent new plays by female and trans playwrights. It is a tool for producers committed to ending the systemic underrepresentation of female and trans playwrights in the American theater.
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
dark comedy
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: cast of 9
Further Reference:
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Top of PageNovell-Aah!
Synopsis:
Set in the high Drama of the telenovela, blonde Chinese diva Marlene, puts her tuxedoed daughter, Izzy, through the paces of courtship. Izzy loves Carlos. But Marlene loves Carlos too. More important, will Carlos ever come? Only Olga the maid knows. a dizzying vortex of gender, culture, and mother-daughter competition.
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1st Produced:
Columbia University 1993
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
short comedy
Parts:
Male: - Female: 3 Other: 1 male voice
Further Reference:
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Top of PagePilgrim
Synopsis:
a little tale of corporate lust. In the midst of a dark and stormy night, Maxine, the temp, finds her hearts desire in the form of the company fixer, a giant falcon named Perry. But is it love or co-option? Only the other typists will tell.
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1st Produced:
Staged Readings: Duke University 2005
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
short comedy
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: a few typists
Further Reference:
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Top of PageRainbow In Your Corner
Synopsis:
a group of multiethnic city kids, with the help from their friends and family, set out to save a blues-singing rainbow and her flora and fauna friends
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1st Produced:
YoshiS Jazz Club, John Muir Elementary School 2010
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
musical
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: 14 characters: roles for multiethnic Boys & Girls
Further Reference:
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Top of PageRancho Grande
Synopsis:
the desert southwest. a single smoking campfire. above, two Chinese gods, Oxboy and Moon Lady, fly in the night sky. Below, young Mamie dreams of having a baby. But with no one to turn to except her oddball pioneer family and the flighty gods, whats a Chinese American cowgirl to do? a Chinese American Western, complete with wordplay, stunning visuals, the iconography of the West, and gunshots.
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1st Produced:
Northwest Asian American Theatre 1997
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageSnakewoman
Synopsis:
a mythic tale of a three-breasted, three-armed, Asian goddess - half-woman, half snake. Now an angry single mother of three teen princesses - one Black, one White, and one Lemon Yellow, she must contend with their man-crazy desires. Sadly, her zeal leads to tragedy. a fairy tale about transforming womans fury into mothers blessing.
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1st Produced:
Staged Reading: Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2003
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
opera
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 4 Other: assorted Villagers
Further Reference:
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Top of PageTour Sino
Synopsis:
a radio play. Rowena, a former Red Guard turned tour leader, takes a group of American tourists to Tiananmen Square. But the simple expedition turns into a dangerous confrontation with the ghosts of the Tiananmen Massacre Democracy movement.
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1st Produced:
Wbai 1993
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1st Published:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
short play
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageWilly Gee!
Synopsis:
Screenplay. Its the Roaring 20s in California. Little Willy Gee, a Chinese American boy, grows up in his familys small town bordello. When he falls in love with forbidden fruit - a woman from the family business and a white girl from school - whats a young boy to do?
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: extras
Further Reference:
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