UPCOMING DISCUSSIONS
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"This program is inspiring, both to students and to the rest of us. It's a great way to help them see how important and relevant (and vibrant) arts in their community are to the rest of their lives and to their own experiences."
Irene Faass -
Professor at MCTC
September 7 - 24, 2023
By Lloyd Suh. Directed by Eric Sharp. Afong Moy was fourteen years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly 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.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, THE CHINESE LADY is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.
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September 22 - October 15, 2023
Co-Produced by Exposed Brick Theatre
By Christopher Chen. Co-directed by Signe V. Harriday and Suzy Messerole. A fantasia inspired by E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, PASSAGE is set in the fictional Country X, which is a neocolonial client of Country Y. B, a local doctor, and F, an expat teacher, begin to forge a friendship that is challenged after a fateful trip to a local attraction. A meditation on how power imbalances affect personal and interpersonal dynamics across a spectrum of situations, the play allows a director wide latitude in casting the roles by race, ethnicity, and gender, with different casting choices highlighting different societal structures. One question we will ask is: Can an authentic friendship occur between colonizer/colonized, between oppressor/oppressed or between people who disagree over fundamental values?
JuCoby Johnson and Stuart Gates at Normandale Community College facilitating an On Stage discussion about Actually
Miriam Schwartz, Lucas Erickson and Michelle O'Neill at Normandale Community College after facilitating an On Stage discussion about Actually
