Event

The Shipment

** Co-presented with On the Boards and Washington Ensemble Theatre **

For The Shipment, Young Jean Lee gave herself the most uncomfortable challenge she could imagine: to makeas a Korean-Americana show about black identity. The show was made in collaboration with an all-black cast and is divided into two parts. The first half is structured like a minstrel showdance, stand-up routine, sketches, and a songand was written to address the stereotypes the cast members felt they had to deal with as black performers. For the second half of the show, Lee asked the actors to come up with roles theyd always wanted to play, and wrote a naturalistic comedy in response to their requests.

What we need to do more of is to talk, to break down the wall of silence that determines what is and is not okay to express about race, and The Shipment is almost precision engineered to force that on the audience by causing them to acknowledge their own assumptions, which is deeply uncomfortable. Jeremy M. Barker, The SunBreak

Photos courtesy of Young Jean Lee Company.

Young Jean Lees play Straight White Men, directed by Sara Porkalob (Dragon Lady) and with scenic design by Jennifer Zeyl (Intiman Artistic Director), will play at Washington Ensemble Theatre from Jan. 11 to Jan. 29, 2018.

When three brothers gather at their fathers home for Christmas, it becomes clear that they have more on their minds than the holidays. With hypocrisy, humor, and enlightened progressivism, this story explores what to do with privilege, and who is to blame for it.