THE RICE EATERS by Yide Cai to Premiere at Broadway Bound Theatre Festival This August

The Broadway Bound Theatre Festival has announced the Off-Broadway premiere of The Rice Eaters, a bold and provocative new play by award-winning playwright Yide Cai, running August 7–10, 2025 at the AMT Theater (354 W 45th St) as part of the 2025 BBTF season.

Directed by Gregory Keng Strasser, The Rice Eaters is a searing meditation on creativity, survival, and moral compromise in a world driven by commerce. Set in a Chinese factory where Van Gogh replicas are mass-produced for Western markets, the play follows Fan Gao, a worker whose quest to escape exploitation leads him to betray his family and values—stealing his son's art and entering into an affair with a foreign manager. As power shifts hands, those once oppressed are faced with the same corrupting temptations that once subjugated them.

Performances will take place:

• Thursday, August 7 at 8:00 PM

• Friday, August 8 at 2:00 PM

• Sunday, August 10 at 5:00 PM

Tickets are available at broadwayboundfest.com.

The production features an international creative team including Qingan Zhang (Scenic & Props Design), Xiangfu Xiao (Lighting Design), Angela Zhang (Costume Design), Jake Eisner (Sound Design), and Christie Chang and Gregory Keng Strasser (Creative Producing), with Zoe Feng and Sherry Wang managing production and stage management respectively.

Playwright Yide Cai, originally from Shenzhen, China, is an MFA candidate at Boston University whose work has been seen at La MaMa, The Tank, the OOB Festival, and internationally. The Rice Eaters was previously developed at Kanini Fest and reflects his interest in cross-cultural storytelling and political critique.