Stuck Elevator is a new music-theater work based on the true story of a Chinese food deliveryman trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours. Byron Au Yong (composer) and I (librettist) have wrestled with 5 bicycles, 4 musicians (including 1 who plays a bicycle), 3 languages, 2 human smuggling debts and 1 General Tso (of Homeland Security) to bring this show, staged by Obie Award-winning director Chay Yew, to its world premiere at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, April 4-28.

A brand-new creation by the Mixing Texts Collective (playwright Aaron Jafferis, breaking pioneers Kwikstep + Rokafella, beatboxers Adam Matta + Yako 440, indie rocker Rebecca Hart, director Christopher Edwards) and a dynamite team of actors and designers, HOW TO BREAK will bring its sick self to NYC this October 18 – November 4 with HERE and the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, in association with Collective Consciousness Theatre.

 

In the spirit of the beloved hit The Black Rider, A.C.T. is thrilled to continue the tradition of introducing eclectic, unforgettable musical projects to the stage with the world premiere of Stuck Elevator (April 4–28). A powerful and poignant hip-hop opera, Stuck Elevator is based on the true story of a Chinese restaurant deliveryman who was trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours. Sounding the alarm will open the doors to freedom, but calling for help also means calling for attention—with dire consequences for this illegal immigrant. Stuck in limbo, he launches into poignant and hilarious hallucinations about his past, present, and future. Inventively staged by OBIE Award winner and internationally acclaimed artist Chay Yew, Stuck Elevator unleashes an evocative collision of stories, sounds, instruments, and ideas, from immigration and labor to familial obligation and fortune cookies.

HOW TO BREAK is being produced by two great NYC theatres – HERE and the Hip Hop Theater Festival – this fall. Auditions June 18-19. Workshop at the Hip Hop Theater Festival August 6-19. Limited engagement at HERE October 18-November 4, 2012. Check back here for times and tickets.

2012 Sundance Institute / Time Warner Foundation Fellow, with Byron Au Yong, for STUCK ELEVATOR.

2012 Thomas Barbour Playwright’s Award (thanks to HERE and the Episcopal Actor’s Guild) for HOW TO BREAK.

2011 Arts Award from The Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Because they said such nice things about me, I made a speech about making art like our lives depend on it.

HOW TO BREAK is the winner of the 2012 Thomas Barbour Playwright’s Award (thanks to HERE and the Episcopal Actor’s Guild), and was heard in workshop readings this April at the Episcopal Actor’s Guild and NYTB at the D-Lounge. HOW TO BREAK tells the story of two hospitalized teenagers – a b-boy with sickle cell and a b-girl with leukemia – breaking through their diagnoses in search of a gut understanding of what it means to be “ill.”

…our first Sundance Theatre Lab (Spring 2011 in Banff, Canada), so they brought it back to try again. This time, me, Byron, director Chay Yew, dramaturg Polly Carl, music director Vadim Feichtner and company petted cheetahs, listened to the call of the Double-Wattled Cassowary, and workshopped STUCK ELEVATOR at the 2012 Sundance Theatre Lab at White Oak, a nature preserve in Florida. Ping pong battles with Jeanine Tesori, Lisa Kron, The Debate Society, and especially Polly Carl were ferocious.

NEFA selected STUCK ELEVATOR as one of their National Theatre Pilot projects, which may help you with $ if your venue wants to be part of our world tour (which begins at ACT in April 2013, then goes to the 2013 International Festival of Arts & Ideas and beyond).

In summer 2011, my collaborators and I: expanded the New Haven León Theater Project to include Teatro Foro en Nicaragua and A PEASANT OF EL SALVADOR (by Peter Gould and Stephen Stearns) in the U.S.; workshopped a brand-spankin new version of KINGDOM at the Atlantic Theatre Company; workshopped HOW TO BREAK at CAP21 and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.