Productions & Events featuring Arnel Sancianco

This story of the first Chinese woman to arrive in the United States unearths hidden history with humor and insight, asking us to explore the way we consider both ourselves and others.

Brought to the United States at age 14 from China in 1834 by enterprising American merchants, Afong Moy is put on display so the American public can get its first view of an authentic “Chinese Lady.” Over the course of 55 years, she performs an ethnicity that both defines and challenges her own views of herself, as she witnesses stunning transformations in the American identity. As these dual truths become irreconcilable, Afong must reckon with herself and the history of her new home with startling discovery and personal revelations.

During this piercing and darkly poetic portrait of America as seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman, “this quiet play steadily deepens in complexity,” wrote The New York Times. “By the end of Mr. Suh’s extraordinary play, we look at Afong and see whole centuries of American history. She’s no longer the Chinese lady. She is us.”

The Chinese Lady was available for remote viewing on demand. Access ended on Sunday, June 19 at 11:59pm.

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This glorious, raw, and bittersweet look at one of opera’s most formidable talents was the Tony Award winner for Best Play in 1996.

Witness a master class conducted by legendary opera diva Maria Callas. Glamorous and demanding, Callas critiques and regales a new crop of opera’s finest. Both frustrated and amazed by the students thrust before her, she escapes into recollections of the glories and failures of her past, remembering her rise as one of opera’s biggest underdogs. This authentic and musically rich Master Class presents a portrait of a fading star who refuses to be anything but unapologetically herself.

TimeLine’s production stars Company Member Janet Ulrich Brooks, a six-time Jeff Award nominee for roles at TimeLine (including 33 Variations, A Walk in the Woods, and All My Sons), where she mostly recently appeared last season as Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience.

Boy explores the beauty of finding love, the complexity of gender identity, and the consequences of the choices we make for those we love. In the 1960s, a surgical accident causes a well-intentioned doctor to convince the parents of twin boys to raise one as a girl. Although Adam transitions back to a male identity at age 14, the repercussions of his parents’ choice continue to reverberate as those involved struggle to connect with each other and themselves, stuck between hope for the future and uncertainty about the past.

The story follows Adam as a young adult in the 1980s finding love for the first time, with glimpses of his childhood that provide a window into what it’s like to grow up in an identity that doesn’t fit.

TimeLine brings Chicago its first view of this “insightful, gut-wrenching, and beautiful play” that is “dazzlingly, deliciously alive from start to finish” (Talkin’ Broadway), and that “has both the white hot issue of gender identity and the simple fact that it’s very, very good in its favor” (Huffington Post).