The Chinese Lady

Inspired by a true story, Lloyd Suh’s piercing and whimsical playdraws a stark line from the voyeuristic gawking of 19th century audiences to the anti-Asian violence of today.

The Chinese Lady tells the story of Afong Moy, a young woman involuntarily brought from Guangzhou to be exhibited as a curiosity in America in 1834. Forced to present a version of her Chinese identity that is ＂exotic and foreign and unusual,＂ Afong, with the help--and hindrance--of her translator Atung, also reflects back her own unvarnished perceptions of America. We learn of our own emperor (Andrew Jackson), and our own strange customs, like corsets, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Chinese Lady is both a caustic examination of racism in America and a deeply American story of migration and self-discovery.

Lloyd Suh is the author of The Chinese Lady, Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery, American Hwangap, The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!, Jesus in India, and others, produced with Ma-Yi, Magic Theatre, EST, NAATCO, PlayCo, Denver Center, Milwaukee Rep, ArtsEmerson, Children’s Theatre Co, and more, including internationally at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and with PCPA in Seoul, Korea. He has received support from the NEA Arena Stage New Play Development program, Mellon Foundation, NYFA, NYSCA, Jerome, TCG, Dramatists Guild, and residencies including NYS&F and Ojai. He is an alum of Youngblood and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and was a recipient of a 2016 Helen Merrill Award and the 2019 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts.