Merrimack Repertory Theatre Opens Its Chau Playwriting Fellowship Applications For 2024

The Merrimack Repertory Theatre has announced that it is opening applications for its inaugural Mayor Sokhary Chau Playwriting Fellowship.

The selected playwright will have a week-long development of their play by theatrical professionals culminating in a public reading on the Nancy L. Donahue stage at Liberty Hall, and will be optioned to MRT for production of future seasons. The application can be found on the Education page of the MRT website, and is due January 31st, 2024.

Named after the first Cambodian American mayor of the United States, this fellowship provides playwrights who self-identify as Southeast Asian, defined by the Southeast Asian Nations Association (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), the opportunity to create and workshop new plays centering around Southeast Asian narratives. Submissions will be adjudicated by playwrights Kalean Ung and Vichet Chum, and the selected playwright will receive a development fee, travel support, and artist housing in Lowell for the duration of the fellowship.

MRT's mission has always been to “create remarkable new and contemporary plays that bring joy to our art form while engaging, entertaining, and enriching our community,” and part of this is embracing the richly diverse city it is housed in, holding the second largest Cambodian community in the United States. The Nancy L. Donahue Executive Artistic Director, Courtney Sale, says, “This fellowship will fill a critical need in building a new canon of work for Southeast Asian writers. There is no better place to create these new narratives than here in Lowell.”

Mayor Sokhary Chau fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to the United States with his mother and six siblings in 1979, escaping the genocide through “landmines, jungles, hunger, sickness, and great uncertainty.” On January 3rd, 2022, Chau was elected Mayor with a unanimous 11-0 vote by the Lowell City Council, making history as the first mayor of color in Lowell, but also as the first Cambodian American mayor in the United States. Chau's vision as Mayor is to create a safe, sustainable, and equitable future for all residents by partnering with state, municipal, and neighborhood stakeholders to prioritize economic empowerment, housing affordability, homelessness, environmental stewardship, green infrastructure investment, equitable healthcare and racial justice, and inclusive education.

Kalean Ung is an award-winning actress, singer, playwright, and interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. She has performed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, Theatre @ Boston Court, REDCAT, Highways Performance Space, The Actors' Gang, and The Getty Villa; alongside performing with various acclaimed theatre companies such as Critical Mass Performance Group, Independent Shakespeare Company, Four Larks Theatre, and CalArts Center for New Performance. She is most likely recognized in the community for her recent play, Letters From Home, which features a series of letters written to her father from refugee camps during the Cambodian genocide about her experiences as an actress and second-generation American. With its humor, music, and dash of Shakespeare, Letters From Home was a standout performance in MRT's 43rd season.

Vichet Chum is a Cambodian American playwright, theater maker, actor, and writer originally from Dallas, Texas and now living in New York City. He is a recipient of various awards, such as the 2018-2019 Princess Grace Award in Playwriting with New Dramatists, as well as the 2021 Laurents/Hatcher Award, and the 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award for his play, Bald Sisters. He serves as a board member for the New Harmony Project and as a committee member for the Obie and Tony Award-winning organization AAPAC (The Asian American Performers Action Coalition). He is also a MRT commissioned playwright with his work, Kween, that follows a Cambodian American Lowell High School student who discovers her love for poetry under the pseudonym Khmer Kerouac. Kween also became his debut novel in October.

MRT is thrilled to offer this opportunity to a Southeast Asian playwright, and to be working again with Kalean Ung and Vichet Chum again for this important matter. 

In partnership with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, lighting up the MRT stage this month is the world premiere of Stephen Dietz's adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's acclaimed play, Gaslight, from October 18th through November 5th. Directed by Courtney Sale, the play pulls inspiration from Sherlock Holmes and film noir to shed new light onto themes of psychological abuse, gender oppression, and truth as Bella delves into the mysteries of her marriage. After Gaslight returns the holiday classic of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, adapted and directed by Courtney Sale, from November 29th through December 24th.

Celebrating its 45th Season, Merrimack Repertory Theatre has been Merrimack Valley's professional theatre company since 1979 and is an integral part of Lowell's identity as the cultural heart of the region. MRT's mission is to create remarkable new and contemporary plays that bring joy to our art form while engaging, entertaining, and enriching our community. A five-show season runs through May in the intimate 279-seat Nancy L. Donahue Theatre. The company is known as a leader in producing new plays, especially world and regional premieres. MRT is one of 72 theatres nationwide (one of three in Massachusetts) with membership in LORT (the League of Resident Theatres).

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