The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh

Afong Moy is fourteen 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 is 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.

BIO:

Lloyd Suh is the author of plays including The Chinese Lady, Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery, American Hwangap, Jesus in India, The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!, Franklinland, Great Wall Story, and others, including Bina’s Six Apples which will premiere with Children’s Theatre Company and the Alliance Theatre in 2022. His work has been produced with Ma-Yi, Magic, NAATCO, EST, La Mama, The Guthrie with Mu, Milwaukee Rep, Long Wharf, ArtsEmerson and more, including internationally at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and with PCPA in Seoul, Korea. He is a current Guggenheim Fellow and has received the Horton Foote Prize, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, and the Helen Merrill Award. He served from 2005-10 as Artistic Director of Second Generation and Co-Director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and from 2011-2020 as Director of Artistic Programs at The Lark. He was elected in 2016 to the Dramatists Guild Council.