2022/23 Season: fu-GEN Theatre’s 20th Anniversary season

PRESENTING: The Chinese Lady
May 2 to 21, 2023 (this production is now closed)

fu-GEN Theatre and Studio 180 Theatre, in association with Crow's Theatre, present the Canadian premiere of Lloyd Suh's award-winning THE CHINESE LADY.

Afong Moy is 14 years old when she is brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Purportedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.”

As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Alternatingly dark, poetic, and whimsical, the play is a searing portrait of Western culture seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

Written by Lloyd Suh
Directed by Marjorie Chan 陳以珏
Featuring Rosie Simon & John Ng 伍健琪

Lighting Design by Kimberly Purtell
Set Design by Echo Zhou 周芷會
Costume Design by Jung-Hye Kim
Sound Design by Gloria Mok 莫嘉詠
Assistant Directed by 郝邦宇 Steven Hao*

*Generously supported by RBC Foundation through Studio 180 Theatre's RBC Emerging Artists program.

For more information on the creative team, visit Studio 180 Theatre.
To purchase tickets, visit Crow’s Theatre.

This play touches on mature themes including racism and trauma that may be challenging for some audiences.

Content Warning:
Demonstration and mentions of historical anti-Asian racism.
Mentions of historical anti-Asian mass violence.
Suggestions of non-consensual touch.

GENesis 2022: Pocket Conference & Festival
November 20-27, 2022 (this festival is now closed)

Gathering over sixty theatre academics and artists from all over the globe to speak, the second GENesis conference sought to explore Asian theatre and performance amidst the past decade of innovation and reinvention. With conference hubs in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Singapore, and the digital portal, GENesis’ week-long event allowed the Asian arts community to pause and reflect on where we’ve come from, where we currently stand, and where we want to go from here.

Stay tuned for announcements on ancillary projects and events born from GENesis 2022: Pocket Conference & Festival!

previously in 2021/22

MH370
Running to June 15, 2021 (this installation is now closed)

Coordinating remotely with over 40 outstanding artists during the pandemic, fu-GEN Theatre is proud to present the durational, immersive and interactive audio installation MH370. Comprising over 1100 intricately connected pieces, this audio installation is unlike anything fu-GEN has attempted before. The 7 hour and 40 minute project runs around the clock from May 31st to June 15th, allowing listeners to choose their own audio journey among the 227 passengers on board.

The installation is inspired by real events; Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing on March 8, 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It had 227 passengers and 12 crew on board. The project reimagines the journey of MH370 as a sort of liminal space and proposes that a disappearing plane is – symbolically – a lot like the diasporic experience. There is a vanishing that takes place when people move between cultures, a subtraction or a loss of mass. It’s the pursuit of this metaphor that is the central engine of MH370: an audio installation on travel, migration and what disappears between places.

TICKETS: Free to the public.

LINK: https://mh370.online/

PAPER CUTS: QUARANTINE EDIT

Hope is leaving her boyfriend tonight. But first she's got to figure out what to say...

An excerpt from the play "paper SERIES" by David Yee starring Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks. A digital presentation by fu-GEN theatre company

Release date: May 19, 2020 on fu-GEN’s FaceBook Page

ONLINE: JOY EDIT

A series of intimate one-on-one interactions taking place online over various communications channels.

Eight Asian Canadian artists guide you through 15 minute interactions provoked by our capacity and basic need for the one thing in short supply these days: JOY.

April 2 - 4, 2020 | 12pm - 12am (this festival is now closed)

NO FOREIGNERS | national tour | FU-gen theatre COMPANY & hong kong exile collaboration

presented by prairie theatre exchange (ywg), the theatre centre (yyz) + shadbolt centre for the arts (yvr)

Shopping malls become a portal into surreal worlds that carry the nuanced stories of loss and resilience from the Chinese diaspora.

No Foreigners is a multimedia performance that meditates on North American Chinese shopping malls as spaces of cultural creation and clash. Multiple storylines begin in a mall and quickly diverge—catapulting us across cities, between Cantonese and English, in and out of the afterlife, through past, present, and future.

Weaving together text, miniatures, digital backdrops and live cameras, No Foreigners examines our changing relationships to these social spaces and the histories, characters, experiences, and ephemera that keep inviting us back.

A collaboration between ground-breaking Vancouver interdisciplinary super group Hong Kong Exile and Governor General’s award-winning playwright David Yee of fu-GEN Theatre.

September 12 - 14, 2019 at Prairie Theatre Exchange (YWG) | tickets

September 17 - 29, 2019 at The Theatre Centre (YYZ) | tickets

October 9 - 12, 2019 at Shadbolt Centre for the Arts (YVR) | tickets

The run for No Foreigners is now closed.

PREVIOUSLY IN 18/19

FEARLESS

FEARLESS is an immersive theatrical experiment that brings live theatre into the backseat of your car. 20 of Canada’s most celebrated writers have contributed a short work that is meant to be performed by a passenger, to a driver… in a moving car. In these one-to-one microperformances, you are the only audience, each performance happens only for you and is different for every single Driver. No two experiences of FEARLESS are like any other.

June 29 & 30 in Downtown Markham | Keys here

potluck xvI

The sixteenth iteration of the Potluck Festival is here! The one night culmination of a season's worth of work by our Kitchen playwrights unit. 4 Asian Canadian playwrights come together to present what they've cooked up, with a literal potluck dinner to follow. Come hungry!

June 8 2019, 8:00PM at The Theatre Centre Incubator

Featuring work by:
Jonathan Dick
Amanda Lin
Jacob Lin
Sai Lian Macikunas

As always, Potluck is PWYC and general admission

JUNE 8 2019, 8:00PM at The Theatre Centre  

FOXCONN frequency (no.3) - FOR THREE VISIBLY CHINESE PERFORMERS | by HONG KONG EXILE

a HONG KONG EXILE production CO-PRESENTED BY FU-GEN THEATRE COMPANY AND THE MUSIC GALLERY

TORONTO premiere : LIMITED ENGAGEMENT

A work of "algorithmic theatre" that incorporates real-time game mechanics, piano pedagogy, 3D-printing, and the poetry of former Foxconn worker Xu Lizhi.

Three performers work with and against each other as they move through a series of testings and mini-games sourced from piano training. They succeed and fail in real-time, forced to correct their mistakes before they can continue. In each performance, 3D-printers output an object documenting the performer's competency over time.

Fully automated and generative, Foxconn Frequency (no.3) is different every performance, ranging from 50 minutes to 80 minutes: an experiment in digital game-mechanics as a way of meaning making in the performing arts.

two shows only

February 22 & 23, 2019 at the Factory Theatre Mainspace (125 Bathurst St.)

DOUBLE BILL: fine china & a perfect bowl of pho | by julie phan & nam nguyen | directed by julie phan & gianni sallese

a saigon lotus & hotake theatre company production | made possible by the generous support of factory theatre

fu-gen theatre presentation series

As part of fu-GEN’s sweet sixteenth season, we honour the authentic voices of our next generation of theatre artists at the very start of their bright careers.

A PERFECT BOWL OF PHỞ

The year is 2019. An open-minded Toronto theatre audience (read: unsuspecting victims) sits down in Factory Theatre Studio to watch a play about the history of pho, the Vietnamese rice noodle soup (read: a thinly-veiled metaphor for Viet culture and identity). They came to see theatre that's diverse (read: a lot of Asians plus one white guy), thought-provoking (read: pandering to educated liberals), and fun (read: it's a musical), all from the mind of one talented young Vietnamese-Canadian playwright (read: a narcissist). A hush falls over the crowd as a flute plays, and lights rise on a poor Vietnamese farmer...

FINE CHINA

What do the phrases: ‘you should eat,’ ‘don’t stay out too late’ and ‘put on a jacket’ have in common? They’re the first-generation immigrant way of saying ‘I love you.’ Love is embedded so deeply in our words and actions that we forget it’s there. It becomes as much the source of conflict as it is for healing. As estranged sisters Kim and Audrey reconnect after the death of their father old tensions arise, repressed feelings come to a head, and appliances are broken as the fate of the family is left in question.

January 23 - February 10, 2019 at the Factory Theatre Studio (125 Bathurst St.)

vietgone | by qui nguyen | directed by robert ross parker

a royal manitoba theatre centre production in association with fu-gen theatre company & hope and hell theatre company

canadian premiere

In this wildly contemporary and stylish mash-up, Nguyen uses everything from hip hop to kung fu to tell the story of his parents’ escape to America after the fall of Saigon. Quang is a badass pilot who saved lives during the war but was forced to leave his family behind. Tong is excited to write her own story but finds America isn’t exactly as advertised. A high-octane refugee take on the boy-meets-girl story, Quang and Tong are not your average immigrants in a foreign land. Nguyen smashes stereotypes as he shares the pain and triumph of two warriors forced to find a home in a temporary world.

October 31 - November 17, 2018 at the Tom Hendry Warehouse (Winnipeg)

PREVIOUS SEASONS

potluck xv | interdisciplinary year two

The fifteenth iteration of the Potluck Festival -- the one night culmination of a season's worth of work by our Kitchen creation lab -- takes on an interdisciplinary spin for the second time. Asian Canadian artists from a variety of disciplines create together in the Kitchen and present what they've cooked up along with a literal potluck dinner at the end of our season. Come hungry.

MAY 26 2018, 8:00PM at The Theatre Centre  

mixie & the halfbreeds | by adrienne wong & julie tamiko manning | directed by jenna rodgers

In Mixie & the Halfbreeds, two estranged neighbors are not as different as they think. Haunted by peroxide teeth and blondissima hair, Mixie and Trixie tackle a question that has plagued mankind through the ages: do blondes really have more fun? Mixie & the Halfbreeds invites the audience to explore complex and relevant issues of culture, identity, and race, and tackles questions of mixing in contemporary Canadian society and popular culture.

APRIL 3 - 15, 2018

NO FOREIGNERS | FU-gen theatre COMPANY & hong kong exile collaboration in association with theatre conspiracy (vancouver) & the theatre centre (toronto)

Shopping malls become a portal into surreal worlds that carry the nuanced stories of loss and resilience from the Chinese diaspora. This multimedia performance investigates malls as racialized spaces of cultural creation and clash where fashion, food, and commodity tether communities to a vital sense of home. A collaboration between ground-breaking Vancouver interdisciplinary super group Hong Kong Exile and Governor General's award-winning playwright David Yee of fu-GEN Theatre.

February 7 - 17, 2018 at the Cultch (Vancouver) 

February 21 - 25, 2018 at the Theatre Centre (Toronto)

GODOT HAS come | BY MINORU BETSUYAKU | A THEATRE OFFICE NATORI (JAPAN) PRODUCTION PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH WHY NOT THEATRE

Godot Has Come by Minoru Betsuyaku marks the first American tour of Japan’s celebrated company Theatre Office Natori. What would happen if Godot, the mysterious unseen character in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, actually turned up? Written as homage to Beckett, this comic – often slapstick – sequel is performed in Japanese with English translations projected above the stage. K. Kiyama, directs this innovative play by Minoru Betsuyaku, one of Japan’s leading contemporary playwrights.

In Japanese with projected English translations

December 9th, 2017 at Factory Theatre. 

acquiesce | by david yee | fu-gen theatre company and factory theatre co-production

Plagued by the success of his first book and haunted by his past, Sin Hwang arrives in Hong Kong with some unusual cargo and a lot of emotional baggage. Featuring a surreal cast of characters, from a foul-mouthed Paddington Bear to a wisecracking Buddhist monk, this sharply comedic and heartbreakingly poignant tale of self, familial and spiritual discovery reflects the cycles from which we must all break free as we find our way.

October 29 - November 27, 2016 at Factory Theatre

walk the walk | national festival of asian canadian women

In partnership with Factory Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Company, Workshop West, The Shaw Festival, Theatre Northwest and Hong Kong Exile

A week-long celebration of female Asian Canadian theatre creators from across Canada. Four creators present new work in development in the form of public readings and performance installations, all directed by women of colour. The week also included masterclasses, long table discussions, panels, a cabaret and our annual Potluck Festival. 

Walk the Walk featured new work by: Mieko Ouchi, Marjorie Chan, Sophie Gee, and Natalie Gan as well our Kitchen creators Lisa Li, Gloria Mok, Diana Reyes, and Christina Wong.

During the festival, fu-GEN also launched The 49, a list of 49 plays by women of colour that can be programmed tomorrow. That list has been circulated to every theatre in Canada, and has since made the rounds in the US and the UK. The 49 can be viewed here.

June 13 - 19, 2016 at Factory Theatre

SEX TAPE PROJECT | BY ADRIENNE WONG, DONALD WOO & DAVID YEE 

Performed in a hotel, across the street from the audience, this site-specific experimental theatre piece explores themes of voyeurism, power and sexuality. It uses bi-locality to experiment with traditional ideals of theatrical spectatorship and reflects on the impact of community and privacy in densely populated urban areas. Viewers watch the action unfold across the street while tuning in to one of three completely independent narrative audio plays which correspond to that action. All three plays occur simultaneously, requiring three separate viewings to experience each writer’s imagined scenario.

November 13 - December 6, 2015 at the Centre for Social Innovation & The Super 8 Hotel Chinatown

DURANGO | BY JULIA CHO | A FU-GEN THEATRE COMPANY & THEATRE SMASH CO-PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE 

Durango explores the entanglement of familial obligation and personal exploration through the lives of widower Boo-Seng Lee, a middle-aged Korean immigrant, and his two sons as they take an impromptu and ill-advised vacation to Durango, Colorado. It is the story of a family road trip, of lost dreams and passed on ambitions. The play tackles big ideas: racism, homophobia and generational secrets, in an intimate and specific way. A poignant and heart-wrenching play, the play calls for feats of visual theatricality, while following the tradition of American family dramas such as Death of a Salesman; slowly and subtly drawing us into an emotionally complex and intimately relatable human story.

May 16 - 31, 2015 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre