Ma-Yi Writers Lab announces new members
Ma-Yi Theater Company is proud to announce the newest members of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the largest collective of AAPI playwrights in the country.
Founded in 2004 by Sung Rno in connection with the TCG/NEA residency program, the Ma-Yi Writers Lab is a professional peer-based workshop in permanent residence at Ma-Yi, designed to nurture and showcase Asian-American playwrights across the country. The seven new members of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab are Nina Ki, Roger Q. Mason, Claro de los Reyes, ayla xuân chi sullivan, Gaven D. Trinidad, Seayoung Yim, and Max Yu. Trinidad, along withKalina Ko and current Ma-Yi Writers Lab member Kimber Lee, serve as co-coordinators.
The Ma-Yi Writers Lab has altered the face of Asian American Theater with works that break stereotypes and redraws boundaries for what is considered culturally specific theater.
About the Playwrights
Nina Ki (xe/she/they) is a Queerean (Queer + Korean) American playwright who lives in Brooklyn. Xe holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and her plays have been read, recorded, and presented nationwide, including with MCC Theater, Queens Theatre, Yale Summer Cabaret, and The Parsnip Ship. To contact Nina or learn more about the work she does, please visit the website at www.nina-ki.com.
Kalina Ko (she/her) is a Cantonese-American theater director, dramaturg, and literary administrator. She is interested in the radical connection and community building of storytelling. She is currently the Literary Assistant at Roundabout Theatre Company, a Curator for Hedgepig’s Expand the Canon, and Associate Producer at Playground-NY.www.KalinaKo.weebly.com
Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is a writer and performer who uses the lens of history to disrupt the biases that divide rather than unite. As a filmmaker, Mason has been recognized by the British Film Institute, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. Mason is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, among other stage organizations.
Claro de los Reyes (he/him) is an actor and a theater & film storyteller of the Filipino diaspora. As a playwright, his recent works have been featured in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Virgin Labfest and Leviathan Lab’s Filipino American History Month Reading Series. He is a graduate of the Fordham College at Lincoln Center theater program. In his work and practice, Claro is committed to exploring cross cultural exchange, pluralism, and decolonized creative practices.
ayla xuân chi sullivan (they/them) is a Black and Vietnamese, non-binary, performance artist from the lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Nuche colonially known as Denver Colorado. Sullivan is an actor, a playwright, a director, a poet, an educator, and a co-founder of Shift 23 Media. Harlem based, Sullivan’s work has been showcased at MCC Theatre, TOSOS, the LGBT Center, throughout the Denver Metro Area, and briefly in Dakar, Senegal.https://www.aylasullivan.com/
Gaven Trinidad (they/he/siya) is a first generation Filipinx American theatremaker and educator from NYC. Their artistic work examines the intersections of race, language, immigration, queerness, ritual, community, and futurity. They taught undergraduate courses on the work of contemporary BIPOC playwrights at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As someone living with bipolar disorder, they are an advocate for Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention. www.gaventrinidadtheatre.com
Seayoung Yim (she/her) is a playwright from Seattle. Her play Jar of Fat (Brown University) won the 2022 Yale Drama Series Prize and second place for the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award at KCACTF. She recently completed her MFA in Playwriting at Brown University, where she was the recipient of the Stephen Sondheim Graduate Fellowship in Theater Arts. www.seayoungyim.com
Max Yu (he/him) is a first-generation Chinese-American playwright from the San Francisco Bay Area. He recently moved from Shanghai and is now based in New York. His play Nightwatch won the 2019 Relentless Award, was a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship, and was selected for the 2022 O’Neill Playwriting Conference. His poetry and prose have been published in China in Spittoon and Babel. He received his B.A. in Theater from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied playwriting under Sylvan Oswald. You can find him at @maxyuliang and https://maxyu.carrd.co/
