VG, Silk Road Rising and TCG Host Book Event for Chay Yew 12/4

Victory Gardens Theater, Silk Road Rising and Theatre Communications Group are hosting a public event to celebrate the new anthology of contemporary Asian American drama entitled Version 3.0, edited by Victory Gardens' Artistic Director Chay Yew, and published by TCG Publications. The event will be held Sunday, December 4, from 5:00pm-7:00pm at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. The evening will include a reception, readings and a discussion with Chay Yew and Luis Alfaro, award-winning playwright, poet and activist (author of Oedipus el Rey, VG's Summer 2012 show) about the anthology and the current state of the art.

Version 3.0 features a foreword by David Henry Hwang (Chinglish, M. Butterfly), and includes work by today's foremost Asian American Playwrights including Julia Cho, Diana Son, Chay Yew, Han Ong, Alice Tuan and others.

The event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required by contacting Daniel Reinglass, 773.328.2130 or dreinglass@victorygardens.org.

Chay Yew (Artistic Director/ Director) joined Victory Gardens Theater in July 2011 as its first new artistic director in 34 years. He is a recipient of the Obie and DramaLogue Awards for Direction. His productions have been cited by the Los Angeles Times and New York Times as one of the “Ten Best Productions of the Year;” Seattle Times and Strangers’ Best Achievement in Theatre; and was named Best Director by Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He has directed world premieres by playwrights Jose Rivera, Naomi Iizuka, Kia Corthron, Julia Cho, David Adjmi and Jessica Goldberg, and performance artists Rha Goddess, Universes, Alec Mapa, Sandra Tsing Loh and Brian Freeman. He is the recipient of the London Fringe Award for Best Playwright and Best Play, George and Elisabeth Marton Playwriting Award, GLAAD Media Award, Asian Pacific Gays and Friends’ Community Visibility Award, Made in America Award, AEA/SAG/AFTRA 2004 Diversity Honor, and Robert Chesley Award; he has received grants from the McKnight Foundation, Rockefeller MAP Fund and the TCG/Pew National Residency Program.

Chay is also an accomplished and widely respected playwright, and his plays are published in two titles, The Hyphenated American Plays and Porcelain and A Language of Their Own, by Grove Press; the latter was nominated for a Lamda Literary Award. He is presently editing a new anthology Version 3.0: Contemporary Asian American Plays for TCG Publications. An alumnus of New Dramatists, he has held residencies at Mu Lan Theatre Company, Northwest Asian American Theatre Company and East West Players. He serves on the National Advisory Board at the Playwrights Center and the Artistic Advisory Board of Partial Comfort Theatre. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and Vineyard Theatre Community of Artists. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Theatre Communications Group and is presently on the Executive Board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Upcoming productions include the world premiere of Dael Orlandersmith’s Black and Blue Boys at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Goodman Theatre (spring 2012).

Silk Road Rising creates live theatre and online videos that explore personal narrative and political discourse through primarily Asian American and Middle Eastern American lenses.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, exists to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. Its programs serve nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 13,000 individuals nationwide. www.tcg.org

About Victory Gardens Theater
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew and Executive Director Jan Kallish, Victory Gardens Theater is home to the bold voices of world premiere theater. The company features the work of its own 14-member Playwrights Ensemble, as well as that of exciting playwrights who are changing theater in the U.S. and abroad. Since its founding in 1974, the company has produced more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, a commitment recognized nationally when Victory Gardens received the 2001 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. The company’s dedication to developing, supporting and producing new work makes Victory Gardens an American Center for New Plays.

In 2006, Victory Gardens successfully completed an $11.8 million renovation of Chicago’s famed Biograph Theater, and moved two blocks north from its longtime venue at 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue, to its beautiful new home in one of Chicago’s most celebrated historic landmarks. Renamed Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, the new venue is a state-of-the-art 299-seat mainstage which has greatly expanded the company’s artistic flexibility, while enhancing Victory Gardens’ ability to welcome patrons old and new.

In 2009, Victory Gardens completed the second phase of renovation at the Biograph, building an intimate, new, 109-seat studio theater on the second floor. On March 1, 2010, at a special launch event for Victory Gardens $1 million Campaign for Growth, the theater’s new studio was officially named the Richard Christiansen Theater, in honor of the Chicago Tribune chief critic emeritus and longtime champion of Chicago’s live theater scene. Visit www.victorygardens.org/campaignforgrowth for more details.

Victory Gardens Theater receives major funding from Alphawood Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, Shubert Foundation, Joyce Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Allstate Insurance Company, Polk Bros. Foundation, The Boeing Company, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding is provided by: Leo S. Guthman Fund, Motorola Foundation, REAM Foundation, Illinois Arts Council (a state agency), Crown Family Philanthropies, Sara Lee Foundation, Edgerton Foundation, James S. Kemper Foundation, Charles & M.R. Shapiro Foundation, and by Wrightwood Neighbors Conservation Association, McVay Foundation, Charles H. and Bertha L. Boothroyd Foundation, John R. Halligan Charitable Fund, Illinois Tool Works, PNC Foundation, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, The Saints, and Irving Harris Foundation.

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