TimePieces Archive: 2019 – 2020 Season
These plays were presented as part of the TimePieces Play Reading Series during the 2019-20 season:
• • • • • • •
THE CHINESE LADY
by Lloyd Suh
directed by Helen Young
Monday, January 13, 2020 at 7pm
TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave., Chicago
Afong Moy is 14 years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, The Chinese Lady is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.
“Piercing and intimate … this quiet play steadily deepens in complexity as we trail the idealistic Afong and the more knowing Atung through the decades … by the end of Mr. Suh’s extraordinary play, we look at Afong and see whole centuries of American history.” —The New York Times
Featuring Deanna Myers* and Wai Yim*
• • • • • • •
MARYS SEACOLE
by Jackie Sibblies Drury
directed by Regina Victor
Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 7pm
TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave., Chicago
Born in 1805 Jamaica, Mary Seacole is determined to live an extraordinary life. As she travels across oceans and centuries, through a Jamaican hospital, a Crimean battlefront, a contemporary nursing home, and everywhere in between, Mary moves through life with Herculean fortitude. But as her brazen spirit meets historical reality, Mary’s world explodes, splitting, multiplying, and redefining her narrative. Based on the life of the famous nurse and entrepreneur, Marys Seacole is an examination of what it means to be a woman paid to care.
Featuring Janet Ulrich Brooks+*, Wydetta Carter, Sydney Charles*, Laura T. Fisher*, Nicole Michelle Haskins, and Kayla Raelle Holder
* Member of Actors Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers
+ TimeLine Company Member
^ TimeLine Associate Artist