Chay Yew

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Chay Yew, born 1965, is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. As of 2007 he lives in Los Angeles, California.

[edit] Career

Yew's plays include As if He Hears, Porcelain, A Language of Their Own, Red, A Beautiful Country, Wonderland, Question 27, Question 28, and Long Season. His adaptations include A Winter People (based on Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard) and Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. In 1989, the government in Singapore banned his first play As If He Hears because the gay character acted "too sympathetic and too straight-looking". The plays appear in numerous anthologies.

Yew was the director of the Mark Taper Forum's Asian Theatre Workshop for 10 years. As of 2007 he serves on the board of directors of Theatre Communications Group.

Yew's plays have been produced by many prestigious outlets, including the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in New York City and the Royal Court Theatre in London. Yew has also directed plays at outlets like the Mark Taper Forum, and his productions have included such performers as Sandra Tsing Loh, Margaret Cho, and Brian Freeman. He also directed the world premieres of Osvaldo Glijov's Ainadamar at the Tanglewood Festival of Cotemporary Music and Rob Zuidam's Rage D'Amors (Tanglewood).

Yew has directed numerous productions by other writers, including Naomi Iizuka's play, "36 Views" at the Laguna Playhouse, Laguna Beach, California, in 2004; and Julia Cho's Durango at the Public Theater and Long Wharf Theatre in 2006.