Blogs The Green Room

Young Jean Lee – Creature of Discomfort

By

Often, when I see projects that make audiences uncomfortable, I feel so isolated from the creators of the work. Because Young Jean Lee sets out to develop a play that is last possible thing she wants to write, I feel a deep connection to her anger, confusion, and lack of agency within the topic she [...]

Often, when I see projects that make audiences uncomfortable, I feel so isolated from the creators of the work. Because Young Jean Lee sets out to develop a play that is last possible thing she wants to write, I feel a deep connection to her anger, confusion, and lack of agency within the topic she is tackling. Early this month, I saw The Shipment, an African-American identity-politics show, written by Young Jean Lee, a Korean-American. Structurally,The Shipment mirrors Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, presented at Out There in 2007. In the first section, she floods the audience in a deluge of stereotypes, and once our political senses have been sufficiently placed off-kilter, her second act is a seemingly unrelated realistic drama. In both cases, she facilitates an experience of heightened racial consciousness within a traditional narrative form (see also: institutionalized white hegemony), especially poignant in a society which now is purporting itself to be “post-race.”

The young playwright has had an incredible start to 2009, being named a Creative Capital grantee, extending The Shipment‘s sold-out run at The Kitchen in NYC, receiving glowing reviews in The New York Times and The New Yorker, and touring CHURCH to the Walker, which wraps up Out There this weekend.

Young Jean Lee has already started to leave an indelible mark with her first three major works Dragons, CHURCH, and now The Shipment. I highly recommend checking out CHURCH, which opens tomorrow night.

Young Jean Lee’s work is often very funny – and we’re not really sure when its supposed to be. She’s one of those rare artists who risks failure in front of an audience, and failure is funny – maybe. Her work exists in a world that dares us to laugh – is she ironic? frighteningly sincere? In a Young Jean Lee performance, the audience’s laughter reveals as much about the human spirit and current cultural climate as what happens on stage.

I hope you can get tickets to this very special performance. Wish I could be there to laugh (or not) along with you.

Young Jean Lee: She’s hot in NYC but chillin’ in Minneapolis.

By

“Church”, written and directed by experimental playwright Young Jean Lee, is flying to Minneapolis on the wings of a flurry of positive press for its creator. Lee has received a great amount of press in recent weeks, including an article in the New Yorker, a front page review in the New York Times for “The [...]

“Church”, written and directed by experimental playwright Young Jean Lee, is flying to Minneapolis on the wings of a flurry of positive press for its creator. Lee has received a great amount of press in recent weeks, including an article in the New Yorker, a front page review in the New York Times for “The Shipment”, as well as a write up in the Village Voice, Time Out, and two New York Times articles for “Church”. Lee was voted best New York provocative playwright in 2007 according to the Village Voice.Church is being performed this week only Thursday through Saturday at 8pm at The Walker Art Center’s McGuire Theater. Click here for tickets.

Church

“It’s an unorthodox contemporary worship service, complete with sermon, praise dancing and a gospel choir… Her slyly subversive drama ambushes its audience with an earnest and surprisingly moving Christian church service that might be the most unlikely provocation produced in years.” Click here to read the complete New York Times Review of Church.

Even as Church’s charismatic and left-leaning central preacher defies traditionally held Christian assumptions, he conveys a passionate message about religion having the power to transform lives, backed up by three female ministers. Hear the word and feel the power as the preaching, dance, and a full gospel choir deliver “a work so enjoyable, so intricate, and so thought-provoking [that] it’s only appropriate to give thanks and praise” (New York Sun).

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Young Jean Lee on writing “Church”: ” The premise that all of my shows begin with is, I ask myself the question, “What is the last show in the world that you would ever want to make?” Then I force myself to make that show. My whole aesthetic is about fighting complacency. So if I make a show that goes against my instincts of what I want to do, that creates a very tense and complicated dynamic. For “Church” the last show in the world I would ever want to do was an evangelical Christian service that’s sincerely trying to convert the audience to Christianity, and that’s not ironic or a joke or making fun of Christianity at all. That just seemed like a real nightmare and a challenge for me, and it has been.”
Click to read more of “Faith Confronted, and Defended, Downtown” an interview with director Young Jean Lee and Lear deBessonet in The New York Times.

On Young Jean Lee’s new work “The Shipment”:
“Critics have lavished praise on “The Shipment,” which Ms. Lee also directed and whose run has been extended until Saturday in New York. In his review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood called the play “a subversive, seriously funny new theater piece.” The New Yorker also gave “The Shipment” a warm and lengthy review — an unusual laurel for a young, relatively unknown writer. ” (New York Times)

Volunteers needed to sing in Young Jean Lee’s play CHURCH

By

Young Jean Lee’s play Church has been highly praised for its writing and direction, and this will be a fun and easy opportunity to perform on the Walker’s McGuire stage and be part of this acclaimed new play. We are gathering a wonderful bunch of volunteers to sing in the choir and take part in [...]

Young Jean Lee’s play Church has been highly praised for its writing and direction, and this will be a fun and easy opportunity to perform on the Walker’s McGuire stage and be part of this acclaimed new play.

We are gathering a wonderful bunch of volunteers to sing in the choir and take part in a piece by the director and playwright Young Jean Lee. Church requires a 50-person choir to sing one song (“Ain’t Got Time to Die“) at the end of the show each night. Participants need only to be willing and able to perform on stage with a group; all ages and ability levels are welcome.

The choir director and Young Jean will need one four-hour rehearsal on Monday January 26 (7-11 pm) with the choir. The choir members should learn the song in advance based on the information sent and have it ready before the rehearsal. Dress rehearsal is on Wednesday, January 28 at 8 pm so that they can learn their entrance, blocking, and curtain call on the stage. Shows are Thursday – Saturday January 29-31 at 8 pm.

Although volunteers will be unpaid, each participant will receive a stipend for parking in the city underground heated parking ramp ($20), a comp ticket for the performance, and a free gallery admission for a day at the Walker Art Center.

Click here for a review from the New York Times.
Click for more information on the performance at Walker Art Center on January 29- 31st, 2009.

The selfish “N” generation? Quirky performance about youth culture this week at Walker

By

This quirky and darkly humorous work Five Days in March by director Toshiki Okada recounts the daily lives of four adolescents in Tokyo’s trendy suburbs of Shibuya and Roppongi during the first five days of the U.S.-Iraq war in 2003. About the performance: A couple of drifting kids stay for five days in a love [...]

chelfitsch, Five Days in March, March 2006, Super Deluxe, Roppongi, Tokyo. Photo by Toru Yokota.

This quirky and darkly humorous work Five Days in March by director Toshiki Okada recounts the daily lives of four adolescents in Tokyo’s trendy suburbs of Shibuya and Roppongi during the first five days of the U.S.-Iraq war in 2003.

About the performance: A couple of drifting kids stay for five days in a love hotel worrying about their futures, while outside in the “real” world, war changes everything. The precarious balance of Five Days in March juxtaposes the grand sweep of history and the insignificant patterns of real daily life. And the insecurity held by urban Japanese youth of the “N” generation (no job, no income) takes form in this startling and indelible performance.

About the director: Toshiki Okada is a playwright and director who has gained international acclaim for his plays, called “super-real” for the way the characters speak in broken sentences, like fragments from private conversations.

About the company: The company’s name, “chelfitsch,” is Okada’s coinage. It represents the baby-like disarticulation of the English word “selfish.” It is meant to evoke the social and cultural characteristics of today’s Japan, not least of Tokyo.

Click here for more information and tickets for this performance beginning Thursday at Walker on January 15-17th at 8pm.
Join us for a post-show reception in the Warhol lounge by 20.21 for discounted drinks and conversation. Opening night the artists will be joining the party.

Free Beer to launch Out There Festival

By

National Theater of the United States of America has arrived and is loading up their show Chautauqua! as the opener of this year’s Out There festival of new performance works. In celebration, and honoring the spirit of NTUSA productions and MN state fairs, Summit has provided beer for the very first beer garden inside the [...]

National Theater of the United States of America has arrived and is loading up their show Chautauqua! as the opener of this year’s Out There festival of new performance works. In celebration, and honoring the spirit of NTUSA productions and MN state fairs, Summit has provided beer for the very first beer garden inside the McGuire theater.

Arrive early to the theater (doors at 7:15 pm) with your performance ticket and enjoy more than just a night at the theater. There is more to Out There every year! For more festival perks, check out the activities on the Walker calendar.

Thanks Summit!

See you there!