The Dance and the Railroad at The Los Angeles Theatre Center

A rare revival of this haunting and deeply moving early work by David Henry Hwang, directed by Katherine Chou in a co-production between Asian American theater collective Artists at Play and Latino Theater Company. Tony Jin and Scott Keiji Takeda star as Lone and Ma, immigrant laborers building the transcontinental railroad during the Chinese Railroad Workers' Strike of 1867. The two men form an unexpected bond through their shared love of Chinese opera, practicing the ancient art form atop a mountain in the Sierra Nevada. They find connection and a sense of possibility even as their fellow workers below confront brutal labor conditions, isolation and cultural displacement.