Logo Indietheater
nytheatrecastNYTE

Skip navigation and go to main content

Nancy Kim, Deepa Purohit and Catherine Jhung
How To Find Your Inner Asian

A nytheatre voices cyber-interview

photo of interviewee

Nancy Kim is an actor and active member of the theatre community. She is a core member of Rising Circle Theatre Collective. Nancy works at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts (formerly Non-Traditional Casting Project), a 20 year old nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting diversity in theatre, film and television. At the Alliance, she has worked closely with theatres across the country to advocate for diversity and inclusion. Deepa Purohit is a founding member of Rising Circle, its artistic director, and production coordinator. She shares writing credit for most of their projects. Catherine is a member of the company and director of this production.
Pictured: Nancy Kim

Rising Circle is producing a show entitled ‘How To Find Your Inner Asian’ as part of your "Laboratory 2008-09 Experiments in Process and Performance". Could each of you tell me what the show is about and how it came to be?

Jhung: How To Find Your Inner Asian, performed and written by Nancy Kim, is one woman's response to the self-help industry in America and to the budding sub-genre of self help books aimed specifically at Asians.  While poking fun at the assumptions and generalizations put forth in these Asian self-help books, the show is ultimately a quest for clarity on what constitutes fulfillment and success in the areas of career, love, family and identity in America today.

Kim: A few years ago, a friend sent me an Amazon link for a book entitled “Dating Asians.” As the very subtle title suggests, it was a self-help guide for those who desired to date Asians. I thought it was ludicrous and begged to be satirized. The initial seed of an idea was to write a sketch show. But often what happens when an idea plants itself in your head is your eyes open to other patterns and connections around that idea. This happened when I then came across another self-help book, Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, written for Asian Americans who want to get ahead in the work force. A few more examples came forward, and then I was left with these bigger themes of identity, cultural assumption—and consumption—through the filter of the self-help genre and my own experiences as an Asian American woman. I felt a personal reaction to these themes and wanted to explore it as a solo show.

Having this idea for a show was a relief because finally, when theatre people asked the dreaded but inevitable question What are you working on?, I actually had an answer: Well, I have this idea for a show… and go into my pitch. I did that for a few parties, gatherings, and unplanned run-ins, and I was encouraged to find that most of the responses were of intrigue and interest.

The best (and scary) thing about being in a theatre collective is that if you should casually mention, I have this idea for a show…, the other collective members listen; they encourage you; and sometimes they come back and say, Write it. Do it. We'll produce it. And for me, that is exactly how this show came to be: a theatre company providing this opportunity to take an idea and make something, make a show.

Purohit: Nancy was inspired to write this show by several books that are floating around out there in the self help book market that are by, for and about how Asians can and do create better more successful, more fulfilling lives for themselves. Nancy was intrigued by these books on many different levels and found humor in not only some of the content she came across, but also in a lot of her own reactions when she read them.

So, I see this story as the journey of a woman who seeks the guidance from these books to unlock her own untapped potential. The audience travels with her to discover whether she succeeds at doing so and watches as she, like most of us, grapples with other “primary sources” in her life when she attempts to achieve her goal to find success, fulfillment, love and all those ingredients that she believes, and the books tell her, will help her to be the happy, well rounded person she wants to be.

I know your company works for a long time to put together an original piece from scratch. Why did you choose this topic, how has it changed from the original idea and where do you see it going before it is a finished product?

Purohit: It really was Nancy who chose the topic and got us excited about helping her create and produce a piece around it. In my view, the vision of the show has remained the same since its inception. The structure of the show, the technical aspects of it and the character components have been changing and evolving since she started writing and exploring the piece last spring. Nancy wrote rough drafts of scenes before the 3-week rehearsal for this workshop began, and since she is rehearsing every other day, she is re-writing and editing in between rehearsals. The questions Nancy wanted to address in the show, “what does it take to be successful and is there a plan you can follow? And can that plan be inherently modeled after Asian behaviors, thoughts and actions as these books profess? are core questions this show is intended to ask and continues to ask.

This is the first year we as a group decided to name our longer, more involved creative process for the company. We spent a lot of time thinking through what name would describe our process, and developed core principles of this process.

The Laboratory 2008-2009, Experiments in Process and Performance signifies the first time we are putting a publicly named structure to a process we’ve practiced since 2004. However, over the past year we’ve thought more deeply about that process and refined it. As a part of the collective process, we believe it’s essential to continue building strong relationships with our audience and to present the work in progress to people we believe would be interested not only in the issues or subject matter of each show we create, but in the mission of the company. Since our shows address a wide range of issues and are focused on bringing the stories of people of color to the stage, we aim to increase diversity not only in the work but also in the audience.

After going through this initial play development process and the public presentation, Nancy will have a better sense of how she wants to move forward. The Collective is here to support her vision for the next steps. Ideally this will include how she as the core artist wants to continue using the collective process within the company to support the next phase. Once we've finished this stage in the Laboratory, we'll assess our next steps based on how Nancy wants to proceed.

Jhung: Nancy Kim brought her concept and these self-help books for Asians to the Collective members and we were immediately enthralled, shocked and titillated by the possibilities they presented. Much of our past work has been dramatic and the comic potential here was exciting, as well as the project's direct connection to Rising Circle's mission to develop the talents of artists of color and the values that drive our work of Untold Perspectives, Diversity and Collective Process. I think the show that we have now is a beautiful representation of Nancy's original brainstorm, complete with the sharing of food with the audience, Nancy dancing hip hop, and playing Kim Jong Il.

Kim:I'd like to respond to part of the question about how it has changed since its original idea:

As I mentioned earlier, I thought at first I would write a few sketches around the source materials. These books were so easy to satirize that quite honestly, the sketches could write themselves just by directly quoting from the materials. And as a solo performance piece, I also had an opportunity to write situations and characters that I would love to perform. I want to dance in the middle of my piece? Sure, done. I want to play a wacky character? Great, I'll write one in.  My chief aim was to poke fun and make some people laugh.

However, bringing the material to the Collective, I was often confronted with: Why do you want to do THIS show? What are you saying? What does this mean? What does this mean, specifically for you?

I must admit that I resisted the direction that the Collective wanted me to examine. There was this prejudice I had about solo shows (self-indulgent, melodrama vehicles) and also my own firm ideas about comedy and humor. Those posed questions seemed unnecessary when my chief aim was to make people laugh.

But the Collective's continual (gentle and not-so-gentle) confrontations took root, and I had to really ask myself: What does this mean for me? And eventually: what are the risks of answering those questions?

It is with those questions in my head that has opened up new avenues about what this show is about and why am the one who wants to tell it. This means that I'm doing things that make me uncomfortable and things that I didn't want to do in a solo show (hey, self-indulgent melodramatic monologue, I'm looking at you). But it's stretching me artistically in many new ways, and that has been a great journey.

As we approach the first night on December 3rd when the piece will be tested in front of an audience, I know I won't have a finished product. Rising Circle's Laboratory has given me this wonderful freedom to really explore, experiment, take chances in this production. But after our 5 performance run, I'm looking forward to figuring out what worked, what needs revisiting, what needs to come back or be left out. Unlike other art forms, I'm lucky that theatre allows for the art to continue living, to grow, and to be better.

It is very unusual for you to be working on a solo piece. How does the creative process differ from your more usual collaborative work?

Jhung: The piece is a solo performance piece, but the collective has been part of it's development from the beginning, giving support and feedback at all stages and Sanjit De Silva has done a great job of providing dramaturgical guidance through the rehearsal process. This past year is the first time that Rising Circle has had two creative projects in development at the same time. Sanjit and Deepa were lead writers on a new play, Grace, also part of the Laboratory Experiments, which received a public reading back in October. Nancy and I were primarily focused on How To Find Your Inner Asian while the others were developing Grace and that is certainly new to us, but it was very exciting and successful, I think.

Kim:Though I will be the only one stepping on stage, the process has been very collaborative. Without the direction of Catherine Jhung and dramaturgy of Sanjit De Silva in rehearsal as well as other Collective members, I would not have any show. They were absolutely crucial in taking a half-formed vision and giving real shape and structure.

Purohit: The process has been almost identical to the processes we used for the last two pieces we've written and produced, even though both of those plays had ensemble work at its core. It's exciting to work on a solo piece because we're expanding our palate. We're exploring news types of primary source material we use (still rooted in personal stories of people of color) the ways we use it, and the ways it is manifest as a theatrical piece.

We had several workshops throughout the spring and summer of this year with Collective members providing feedback and reactions to Nancy's work in its very early stages. Nancy also invited a few select colleagues she wanted to include in the process. After rehearsals started in early October, Nancy brought in the designers and Catherine, Nancy, with help from Sanjit De Silva as a dramaturg, have been shifting the structure and content within and between rehearsals and will continue to do so through the closing of the performance. With Pulling The Lever and American Family Project we entered the three-week rehearsal process with rough scripts and then refined them up until opening night. However with this piece Nancy has the freedom to change and alter her material every night if she wants to, something we did not do for AFP and PTL. That is what makes the Laboratory process different from our previous productions.

We are also developing a new piece (written by Sanjit De Silva and myself) about refugee resettlement in Zambia, entitled Grace. It is based on interviews and is also a part of this Laboratory. We had a successful public reading of the first draft for people knowledgable in human rights and in theater in October 2008 and plan for a public presentation of the second draft in March 2009. It is really exciting to be incubating more than one project at a time and the Laboratory is a structure that will allow us to grow the number of creative ideas and concepts emerging from the company in the future.

Nancy is the writer and performer, Catherine the director, and Deepa the artistic director of the company. How does each of you perform your task without stepping on the toes of the other?

Purohit: As the artistic director and production coordinator, my role in this project has always been to solely focus on enabling Nancy and Catherine to work in the best and most productive way possible while constantly pushing for rigor in the work that's being done. Sanjit De Silva is the dramaturg, and Catherine and Nancy have been working together to coordinate the designers and the stage manager. Of course we all jump in and play significant roles in any way we can on the production end because a lot has to get done in a very short period of time. We have strong working relationships due to the number of projects we've worked on together, and we have a respect for sharing ideas, regardless of our role while at the same time giving each other room to create freely. That is the great part about the workshop performance situation. There's enough accountability to our audience to push for making the work strong, yet at the same time the Laboratory is giving Nancy and, in turn Catherine, the freedom to take risks in their art making. My role is in managing a balance between those two goals.

Kim: Catherine and Deepa probably have more thoughtful answers. My biggest lesson has been to communicate and to do that often.

Jhung: Collective Process is Rising Circle's motto and operating mode, so I think we've gotten quite good at maintaining our roles while working together. We talk a lot. Toes may get stepped on from time to time, but we are committed to each other and to the work, so it's a learning experience. "Onward and upward!" is another favorite saying.

What does the audience for such a lab experiment contribute to the finished product and why is this important?

Kim: Since theatre exists only with the participation of the artist(s) and the audience, this experiment won’t really mean anything until the piece is finally introduced to the audience.

In other finished productions, I've only sought two answers from the audience: did you like it? Or did you not like it? As the creator/performer for this particular lab experiment, I feel a lot freer knowing that I don't have to reduce the audience reaction to those two sides: like or dislike. I'm expecting to throw a big hot—interesting!—mess at the audience, and figuring out what parts of the mess is fun for me and the audience.

Jhung: Having an audience witness the work that's been done is the final piece of the puzzle which will tell us how well we're telling the show's story. Their feedback will help us to refine both script and performance, creating a sort of "do or die" situation in which the piece has to rise to the fullest incarnation within its current state. That information is vital for the show to move to the next level and can only really be ascertained with an audience present.

Purohit: We're asking audience members to email us at audiencefeedback@risingcircle.org with their reactions so that Nancy can get constructive, thoughtful feedback on the piece. We've also created a fun event for almost every evening so that people from the audience can gather around food and talk about the show with us. This will give us an informal sense of how folks felt about the show. The Collective will come up with a few specific questions to ask folks in these smaller more informal conversations with a view toward eliciting feedback that will help Nancy move the show forward. We want to make the feedback process fun!

When can we expect to see the final production?

Purohit: It's difficult to say at this juncture of the show's development. Nancy will make a decision on how she wants to move forward after this workshop and from there, we may develop the piece further internally while simultaneously seeking festivals and platforms where the work can be viewed, further developed, and/or performed outside of the Rising Circle network.

Jhung: I would love to see How To Find Your Inner Asian developed further and performed multiple times over the next several years in various locations. I don't think we can say at this time a specific date for a full production, but I think Rising Circle would be open to collaborating with other companies and festivals toward this. A staged production of Sanjit DeSilva and Deepa Purohit's Grace is our next project for 2009. We'll keep you posted on that!

November 26, 2008