Encore Theatre Presents HOOKMAN, Now thru 5/30

Encore Theatre Company has announced the world premiere of HOOKMAN, a new play by Lauren Yee whose playwriting credits includes The Hatmaker's Wife and Ching Chong Chinaman. Commissioned by Encore Theatre, Hookman dramatizes the story of Lexi, a student in her first year at college. After losing her high school best friend to a hook-handed serial killer, Lexi must learn what it means to grow up, young and female, in a world that's sometimes dangerous and lonely. Directed by Becca Wolff, Hookman opens in previews tonight, May 6 at Z Below in San Francisco, and runs for three weeks through Saturday, May 30.

Yee describes Hookman as "a strange comedic riff on the horror genre, or perhaps an existential slasher comedy." Lisa Steindler, co-artistic director of Encore Theatre, elaborates, "While a comedy, Hookman is also a meditation on grief. It explores the question of what happens when we lose those closest to us and how we deal with such loss."

Encore Theatre commissioned Yee in 2012, supporting her over the following two years. Yee workshopped Hookman at the University of California-San Diego Baldwin New Play Festival, Company One/Boston Center for the Arts, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in New York and the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.

"It's been enormously rewarding to watch Lauren grow into such a fearless writer, tackling some of the most difficult topics of our time," raves Steindler. "And for me, personally, it's been fascinating to enter into the worldview of a daughter of first-generation Chinese Americans. Encore Theatre is committed to expanding the audiences for theater by presenting a diverse array of voices."

"Encore Theatre doesn't have a regularly scheduled season," continues Yee. "Rather it waits to produce the work it's truly passionate about -- and under just the right conditions. This seems to me to be unusual for a company of its size and reputation."

Encore Theatre's recent productions include the critically acclaimed and award-winning Hundred Days, a collaboration with Z Space; Circle Mirror Transformation, a collaboration with Marin Theatre Company; and The Totalitarians, presented with Z Space. Since the conclusion of its residency at the Thick House in San Francisco in 2007, Encore Theatre has partnered with some of the most highly esteemed theater companies in the Bay Area to produce consistently challenging and entertaining work by talented, new playwrights.

Tickets for Hookman are $20 to $30 and may be purchased online at zspace.org or by calling 866-811-4111.

The commissioning and production of the world premiere of Hookman is made possible by The Wallace and Alexander Gerbode Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation 2012 Playwright Commissioning Awards initiative. Other funders include The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The Zellerbach Family Foundation and Grants For The Arts.

Lauren Yee's plays include King of the Yees (Goodman Theatre commission), Ching Chong Chinaman (Mu Performing Arts, 2009), Crevice (Impact Theatre, 2012), The Hatmaker's Wife (Playwrights Realm, 2013), The Tiger Among Us (Mu Performing Arts, 2013), Samsara (Victory Garden Theatre, 2015), in a word (SF Playhouse and Cleveland Public Theater, 2015) and Hookman (Encore Theatre, 2015).

Her work has been developed at Lincoln Center/LCT3, the Goodman Theatre, The Public Theatre, Second Stage, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Center Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Kitchen Dog, the Magic Theatre and others. She is a former Dramatists Guild fellow, MacDowell Colony fellow, Public Theater Emerging Writers Group member, Women's Project Lab playwright, Second Stage Shank playwright-in-residence and Playwrights Realm Page One resident playwright.

Yee's play Samsara was a nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. Her play The Hatmaker's Wife was an Outer Critics Circle nominee for the John Gassner Award for best play by a new American playwright.

Yee is currently a member of the Ma-Yi Writers' Lab and the Playwrights' Center Core. In addition to Encore Theatre, she is under commission from the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center/LCT3, Mixed Blood and TheatreworksUSA. BA: Yale. MFA: University of California-San Diego. For more information, visit laurenyee.com.