BOSTON (May 25, 2023)—Pao Arts Center in collaboration with CHUANG Stage and Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston (AATAB) launches the workshop reading of Flight of a Legless Bird (in Chinese: 無腳鳥的飛行), taking place at Pao Arts Center on Friday, June 2 at 7 p.m., and Saturday, June 3 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Written by Ethan Luk and directed by Wilson Wang, Flight of a Legless Bird follows the intertwined lives of two queer artists, Robin and Leslie, from the 1980s to the 2000s. The story takes audiences from New York’s West Village to bustling Hong Kong, reminiscing a golden era of pop music, identity, culture, and the transformative power of art in rapidly changing times.
Flight of a Legless Bird was a finalist at the 2023 National Playwrights Conference (Eugene O’Neill Theater Center) and the recipient of The Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (Distinguished Achievement) at the 2022 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. It premiered in July 2021 at Ying Drama Studio’s MINI Theater Festival in Beijing and was developed through New York Theater Workshop’s Mind the Gap program with funding from The Sam Hutton Fund and The Sandberg Fund at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
“[This] play is about collisions: what happens when two cultures and languages are forced to be in proximity with one [another,]” said Ethan Luk. “Throughout the development process, I would work closely with audiences and dramaturgs, particularly LGBTQIA+ and AAPI identifying members, through discussions and post-reading feedback to understand our prejudices, stories, and revelations about queer Asian folks.”
The play is a part of Found in Translation, a multilingual play reading and community workshop series produced for Boston. Activated in Chinatown since Fall 2021, Found in Translation is a collaboration between Pao Arts Center, CHUANG Stage and AATAB aiming to celebrate the power and complexities of being multilingual, immigrants, or identifying as Asian American in Greater Boston through theater. Found in Translation brings forth a collection of new contemporary plays written by Asian American playwrights, realized by a local creative design team. By embracing the script-in-hand stage reading format, the series highlights the plays’ best potential and invites audiences to explore their bold narratives.
“Our vision with the Found in Translation series is to empower AAPI theater-makers to seek and create stories that celebrate the multilingualism that is core to so much of the Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora,” said Ashley Yung, Theater and Performance Manager of Pao Arts Center. “Bringing multilingual stories to Boston’s Chinatown is particularly special because of this community’s own multilingual dynamic and long history of fighting for language access. As someone who grew up speaking Cantonese, being able to work with the Cantonese-English script of Flight of a Legless Bird feels especially meaningful.”
“It was insightful to hear how the audience reacted to my interpretation of our shared cultural and historical experience of China/Hong Kong in the 80s to 00s, and also to the events in the U.S.,” said Ethan Luk. “Many of the Beijing audience members had no previous exposure to the AIDS crisis or even seeing queer Chinese representation onstage prior to this play. Bringing the play to an American audience would be a way of completing the circle, allowing the play to receive feedback from both of the worlds that are integral to the construction of the play.”
Post-show activities have been planned for both days to further enrich this cultural experience. Friday’s audiences will be provided with an opportunity to engage in a post-show conversation with the cast and creative team. Saturday will culminate in a “Red Heels” Cantopop Dance Party, celebrating the Cantopop music legend, Leslie Cheung’s iconic queer stage moments to mark a vibrant ending.
“Flight of a Legless Bird is about an incredible era of music, art, and cultural queer becoming that defines intergenerational memory, and brings people together in both joy and grief, ” said Alison Yueming Qu, Co-Founder and Executive Director of CHUANG Stage. “We are deeply privileged to honor this endured legacy, fostering a sense of community rooted in resilience, strength, and love for all.”
This project is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation.
Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $10. For registration and more information, visit https://www.paoartscenter.org/events/2023/flight-of-a-legless-bird or contact ashley.yung@bcnc.net.
About Pao Arts Center:
Pao Arts Center was established in 2017 as a visionary program between Boston Chinatown
Neighborhood Center (BCNC) and Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC). It is Chinatown’s
first arts and cultural center. For more information, please visit paoartscenter.org.
About CHUANG Stage:
CHUANG Stage is the first Mandarin-English bilingual, bicultural theatre company nationwide, cultivating joyful and challenging Asian American stories that pioneer a new activism in the arts. For more information, please visit chuangstage.org.
About Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston (AATAB):
AATAB is a social collective that empowers and connects Pan-Asian theatre artists in the Greater Boston area. For more information, please visit aataboston.com.
