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Review: Papa, a fantastical biography of Hall Lee, grandfather, father, draftsperson, chef

Continuing Recital’s sponsored partnership with the New Hazlett Theater, we are presenting a series of editorially-independent previews and reviews of the 2021–22 Community Supported Art (CSA) Performance Series. Below is our review of Papa by Bailey Lee, a collaborative response from Recital editor David Bernabo and guest panelist Ariel Xiu. Read their bios at the end of the review.

By David Bernabo | Photos by Renee Rosensteel.

In Papa, writer, co-creator, and performer Bailey Lee immortalizes her grandfather, her papa, Hall Lee, with an ode to his life, told through a fictionalized excavation of personal memories, family stories, and the kind of exaggerations that make stories worth passing down through generations. The play–tightly scripted and performed–is a touching look at sacrifice and dedication to one’s family. Impeccable set and sound design along with vivid video projections match a trio of impressive performers. Surreal jumps into genre experiments break up what might otherwise be a gentle, tension-less story. In researching the past and contextualizing it in the present, Bailey Lee presents two stories–an evolving biography of Hall Lee and a near-coming of age tale of the character Bailey Lee.

The New Hazlett Theater’s CSA series can be viewed as an experimental platform. It often allows an artist to test out ideas on a stage that is larger and more professional than the last place they performed. This often results in performances that could use a layer or two of refinement. But that’s kind of the point. Our review panel, which has been in action since 2016, has certainly had a preference for the risky, the adventurous, and the weird. Failure is perfectly acceptable; encouraged, even. That said, there are performances that premiere with nary a flaw, where the execution of the concept easily earns a bevy of those 100% emojis. I would add Papa to this short list.

The cast of Lee (playing a fictionalized version of herself, among others), Arnold Y. Kim (Papa/Hall Lee, others), and Frances Dell Bendert (Mom, others), under the direction of Coleman Ray Clark, are phenomenal, each mastering a number of characters within Papa’s lengthy script. These roles require the ability to convey grief, love, admiration, and insecurity, all while delivering slapstick physical comedy and mustering a few tears in this review panel’s eyes.

At the age of 15, Hall Lee left the farmlands of China for McKeesport, PA, then a city that thrived on the manufacturing of steel. He worked in his father’s restaurant, until it was knocked down by the city to make way for a mall that was never built. Hall then enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, studied engineering, and later worked as a draftsperson at Westinghouse. We learn about these plot points as Bailey does. Some of Hall’s history is revealed through dialogue between characters and some of it happens when the various characters take turns delivering monologues. Over the duration of the play’s non-linear story, we also see scenes of Bailey’s parents, learn of her father’s passing, and get a glimpse into her father’s private thoughts via his notebooks. These historical revelations reveal intergenerational tensions like managing expectations of parent and child, all while navigating the pressure to assimilate in the predominantly (and, literally, oppressively) White culture of America.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Review: Papa, a fantastical biography of Hall Lee, grandfather, father, draftsperson, chef

By  | Photo by Renee Rosensteel

Playwright Bailey Lee puts the age of her beloved grandfather, Hall Lee, at 87 years, but it comes with a caveat.

“It’s a little bit funny because we don’t know his exact birth year,” Bailey says of Hall — or, as she calls him, Papa — who, as a teen, emigrated from rural China to the small western Pennsylvania town of McKeesport. “So every year for his birthday, we put a question mark on a candle.”

Hall serves as the inspiration for Bailey’s play Papa, set to stage from Thu., April 7–Fri., April 8 at the New Hazlett Theater. Presented as part of its CSA Performance Series residency, which supports artists as they develop a new work for the New Hazlett stage, the show is described as using drama, music, and puppetry to recount Hall’s journey, and “unpack the Lee family’s memories, fantasies, and heartaches, tracing the complicated relationship between three generations of Asian Americans.”

The small cast includes actor Bailey as herself, Arnold Y. Kim as Papa, and Francis Dell Bendert as Bailey’s mother. All the actors will also take on other roles throughout the play. While Bailey, an actress, writer, and “theater-maker,” has produced other works, the idea for Papa has stuck with her as a far more personal project.

“So this has been a play that’s been with me for a long time,” says Bailey, who worked on Papa with her husband and creative partner, Coleman Clark. “I’ve had the seed of it for a while.”

Though she lives in New York City, and Hall has moved in with a relative in Chicago, Bailey felt that Papa should stage in Pittsburgh, especially since her grandfather was such a fixture in nearby McKeesport. She believes her time with the CSA Performance Series gave her the perfect opportunity to make the show a reality.

“Very rarely will an organization open up resources and support to something not yet fully formed,” says Bailey. “And that’s what the New Hazlett has done for me. They accepted me as an artist, and with this idea, and over this year, has been a support system for me, like an incubator, a true incubator for me as an artist.”

She adds that, while she initially envisioned the show as a staged reading, the CSA residency gave her the freedom to bounce ideas around and let the concept grow.

“And through their encouragement in partnership, it’s now bloomed into a full production,” says Bailey. “So really, this piece would look completely different if it wasn’t through the partnership with the New Hazlett.”

Papa covers the relationship between Bailey, her late father, and Hall, who she says came to the United States in the mid-1940s. He worked at one of McKeesport’s first Chinese restaurants (“There’s a funny old article about it in the paper,” Bailey laughs), which was owned and operated by members of his family. He then attended two years at the University of Pittsburgh, got married, and became a draftsman for Westinghouse Electric, where Bailey says he stayed for most of his career.

Bailey calls her grandfather “one of the most selfless people I know,” adding that he “left a lot behind in his immigration,” repressing much of his Chinese heritage in order to assimilate into American culture for what she calls “the safety and benefit of our family.”

“And my Papa is a man of few words and many mysteries,” says Bailey. “So I’ve always grown up deciphering his stories in different ways.”

Further complicating her relationship with Hall was the unexpected death of her father when she was just 15 years old. “Since then, every conversation that I’ve had with my Papa is in relation to the loss of my dad,” says Bailey, adding that the play not only covers her grandfather’s sacrifice, but “generational grief and love and the dreams that we sow into the next generation.”

Even with the heavy subject matter, Bailey says the play will depict “all the fun and chaos that a family is.”

“It’s fast paced, it’s a lot of fun,” says Bailey. “It has moments that I hope are really funny, and moments that I think will pull at the heart, I hope.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

PREVIEW: PAPA

“Everybody needs somebody to witness their life and to know that they were here and that they made a difference.”

An interview with Bailey Lee on the play, “Papa”

In Bailey Lee’s Papa, the viewer journeys from the farmlands of rural China to the hills of McKeesport, celebrating Asian American heritage by exploring the Lee family’s memories, fantasies, and heartaches through drama, music, and puppetry.

The performance is part of the New Hazlett Theater’s CSA series. There are three performances on Thursday, April 7 at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. and Friday, April 8 at 8pm. For tickets and more info, click here.

Read our interview with Bailey Lee below!

David Bernabo: Can you tell me about your papa?

Bailey Lee: I’m creating this play for my papa. My papa immigrated from China somewhere between the ages of eight and 15 to McKeesport, PA. He finds his life very uninteresting, and I find it very interesting. This is a play to celebrate and uplift him and Asian Americans. My relationship between my papa and I crosses generations and countries. We have very little in common, but he has made me who I am today. When I was 15, my father passed away unexpectedly. Since then, every conversation that I have with my papa is in relationship to the loss of my dad. So, this is a play about generational grief and love, the dreams that we sow into the generation to come after us, and the hope that we put in them, even if lovingly in the name of assimilation. This is an original Chinese American McKeesport play, and I’m so happy to get to make it in Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh.

DB: Is there a lot of immigration from China to McKeesport?

BL: Well, it’s interesting, I actually I found a newspaper article about a restaurant that my grandfather owned. I didn’t know he owned or operated a restaurant. I found out that he owned and operated the only Chinese restaurant in McKeesport. So part of the play takes place in Yee Wah’s Chinese Restaurant on Walnut Street in McKeesport, which was torn down to build a parking lot for a mall that never got built. So, the play is about those bittersweet moments–the things my papa has poured into me.

But no, it’s not to say that Pittsburgh doesn’t have a large Asian American or Chinese American population now, but when my grandfather came, everybody knew Hall Lee because he was one of the few Chinese men in McKeesport.

DB: Do you know what year he moved to McKeesport?

BL: He immigrated in 1935 and lived in McKeesport most of that time. As I’ve grown up, I’ve learned that he lived in Brooklyn, New York. I told him I was moving to New York and he said, Well, I lived in Brooklyn. I was like, You lived in Brooklyn? So, that’s my relationship with my poppa. He’s a man of many secrets, lovingly hiding them in assimilation. Our relationship is the constant revision and reworking of stories and how those stories shift my perception of my identity, as the markers of homeland keep changing.

DB: Given that you are still discovering aspects of this history and that there is a weight of responsibility to tell the story of people you know and love, can you speak to the writing process of Papa?

BL: So I applied to the CSA with just an idea for this play, and over the past year, with the theater’s resources, I’ve been able to create that play. I’ve created it from collecting reference material, interviews, and stories of my past. This play is semi-autobiographical. Ultimately, I think we all have our own versions of history and memory. So this is mine, and I hope it’s uplifting and honoring of my grandfather and of the sacrifices that they’ve made for me. But this is just my expression of loving the parts of me that I got from him, loving the Asian American parts of me that I carry with me, whether they’re seen outwardly or not.

DB: Growing up, did you see media that you thought reflected your experience?

BL: No. I grew up with my father, who was half Chinese and half White and who looked so Asian. So when I would go with him to the Grand Asian Market, I would always be asked if I was adopted. I never knew quite where I fit. So, this play really explores self-perception and identity, because when I see a Chinese man, I will feel infinitely safer with them. I see all of this Asian hate that’s going on, and my heart just breaks because that’s my family, even though I walk through the world with a lot of privilege and I’m very White-presenting. I think I just have a heart for my family and the Asian American community at large. This is my way of holding a stake in the ground for them and celebrating this community that I get to be part of.

DB: You mentioned that part of performance takes place in the restaurant. Can you walk me through some of the other mechanics of the performance?

BL: Yes, the play is performed by three actors who play multiple characters throughout the night. We go to many different settings. You journey with the character Bailey, a young, mixed Asian American artist as she recollects, reexamines, and revises the past. We go to different eras. We have scenes in my grandfather’s Chinese restaurant. We have scenes in my Papa’s home in downtown McKeesport. We have scenes in-between spaces, in Bailey’s imagination. There’s a fusing of eras and perspective, and some things are anachronistic. Some things don’t make sense. There’s folk stories, some puppetry, some dance, humor, I hope, and definitely a lot of heart. So it’s a very full evening.

DB: Are there other themes within the work that you want to share?

BL: Themes that I’m working with for this piece are generational hand-me-downs–what we intend to give and what we end up inheriting. The distance between family members. The fragility and versatility of memory. Homeland grief. Asian love and celebration. And also, it’s a play I hope that is a little bit of a balm for anyone who has ever felt in-between.

READ THE FULL PREVIEW HERE

 New Play Has Strong McKeesport Ties

‘Papa’ debuts Thursday at Pittsburgh’s New Hazlett Theater

By Bonnijean Cooney Adams
The Tube City Almanac
April 04, 2022

“Papa” is the story of Hall Lee, who came to the United States from the farmlands of China when he was approximately 15 years old, settling and living most of his life along Jenny Lind Street in McKeesport.An original play with strong ties to the McKeesport area is making its world debut this Thursday at the New Hazlett Theater in Pittsburgh.

Bailey Lee, his granddaughter, wrote the play, created the concept, and stars as herself in the production. It’s about things her grandfather suppressed to protect the family and assimilate into American culture, plus the sometimes complicated relationship among three generations of Asian Americans, Lee said.

From New York City before she left to return to Pittsburgh this week, Lee talked about the circumstances that brought “Papa” to fruition.

“Although I was raised in North Carolina, I visited Pittsburgh a lot,” Lee said. “The play is set in McKeesport, which has a lot of meaning for me. My parents met and dated when they went to Serra Catholic High School.”

She said her grandfather – Papa Lee to his family – found work at a Chinese-American restaurant along Walnut Street. He went to the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a draftsman for Westinghouse.

“He’s 87 now and just moved from Jenny Lind Street in December,” Lee said. “I wrote this play to honor him and celebrate his life.”

Frances Dell Bendert, Bailey Lee and Arnold Kim as the titular “Papa” rehearse a scene from the play, which opens Thursday. (Coleman Ray Clark photo courtesy New Hazlett Theater)

Theater-maker Lee said when her father died suddenly when she was 15 years old, she found she had many unanswered questions, and turned to her grandfather.

“I was always curious, and I think I just became more aware of the sacrifices that were made when my father passed away,” she said. “I thought I had more years to find out.”

Conversations with Papa Lee, she said, have been in relation to the loss of her dad.

“This is a play about generational grief, love, and finding the way … about what we inherit, then what is passed on or what we let go of,” she said.

While the idea for the play had been on Lee’s mind, she said circumstances during the pandemic provided the opportunity.

“I always wanted to work as an actor, so moved to New York,” said Lee, who is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and alumna of the Kenan Fellowship at Lincoln Center Education.

Recent acting credits include “The Water Rumbles in Limbo Time” and “Lesson for the Future.” But with productions shutting down because of COVID-19, plus a desire to be near family, Lee and her husband headed back to Pittsburgh, where many of her relatives had relocated.

With time out from performing, Lee said she connected with Community Supported Art through the New Hazlett Theater. The CSA Series provides emerging artists in Pittsburgh with the opportunity to develop new work for the New Hazlett stage. She applied to the program and was accepted.

“This is really important to share my family’s story,” Lee said. “Some of it is autobiographical and some is creative license.”

While back in Pittsburgh starting to develop the play, Lee said it was the perfect opportunity to return to McKeesport to places she remembered from many visits, including the Eat’n Park along Lysle Boulevard.

“I have always been interested in my Papa’s stories, and being back in Pittsburgh, it was wonderful that I could drive through the areas that I remembered in McKeesport as I created,” Lee said.

“What a joy to watch an artist like Lee create a brand new piece of theater over this year,” said Kristin Helfrich, director of programming. “The first draft felt like it had been waiting in the wings for this moment. Excited to bring this well-crafted Pittsburgh story about ancestry and heritage to our stage.”

Once the play was written, with Lee cast as herself, she said auditions were held to fill the other two main roles.
“We posted the roles in Pittsburgh and New York,” Lee said, then held auditions.

Arnold Y. Kim was cast as Papa, with Frances Dell Bendert as Mom. Including Lee, all actors double as others throughout the production.

With many COVID restrictions lifted, Lee moved back to New York, where in-person “Papa” rehearsals began.
Lee said the group left for Pittsburgh “to meet up with our other half” to tweak anything necessary before opening night.

“CSA has been really generous,” she said. “The timing for me has been serendipitous. This play is highly theatrical and it’s very important that people see it live and in person.”

She uses a combination of drama, music, and puppetry to tell the story.

“The play is very much about the reality of what we hold on to in relation to assimilation” from one culture to another,” Lee said. “I’m a quarter Chinese. My dad was half. This play is a special moment I get to share with others. It moves really fast, with a lot of love, longing, and chaos.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Local play explores Chinese-American family in mid-20th-century Pittsburgh

90.5 WESA | By Bill O’Driscoll
Published April 4, 2022 at 5:15 AM EDT
Pittsburgh’s past, though copiously documented, still has many hidden histories waiting to be told. One is the story of Hall Lee, who came to Pittsburgh from rural China as a boy in the 1940s. Lee’s history is obscured by time and more, but it’s one his granddaughter, Bailey Lee, attempts to unearth – or at least imagine – in her new play, “Papa.”
Arnold Kim

New Hazlett Theater Arnold Y. Kim plays “Papa.”

While Bailey Lee grew up in North Carolina, she and her parents regularly visited her Papa in McKeesport, where her father and mother had grown up. During the pandemic, she moved back to Pittsburgh for about a year and earned a spot in the New Hazlett Theater’s Community Supported Art performance series with her idea for the play.

“It’s a celebration of three generations of Asian Americans, and how assimilation is a factor in that,” said Lee, who is 24 and now lives and makes theater in New York City. “It’s a story about searching for homeland and letting go of those markers that we hold onto.”

The play is set mostly in Papa’s house, in McKeesport. It features a cast of three including Lee, as “Bailey”; Arnold Y. Kim, as “Papa”; and Frances Dell Bendert, as “Mom.” It gets three performances Thu., April 7, and Fri., April 8, at the New Hazlett.

While her grandfather, Hall Lee, is still alive, Bailey Lee said much about him is not known for sure. That includes his date of birth – the guess is he’s 87, but the family puts a question mark next to his age on his birthday cake every year.

Frances Dell Bendert

Brian Jones | Frances Dell Bendert plays “Mom.”

Also unknown is the exact year he arrived in McKeesport, and even whom he traveled with: His own father at that time already owned what was likely McKeesport’s only Chinese restaurant; his mother remained in China; and family lore indicates he immigrated within someone known as his “second mother,” whose identity is unclear.

Bailey Lee also notes that Hall Lee’s relationship with his father, Henry King, does not seem to have extended much beyond Lee working in Yee Wah’s Chinese Restaurant, which was located on McKeesport’s main drag, Walnut Street, back when it was still a bustling mill town.

So while some of the play is based on true family history, much of it takes place in the character Bailey’s imagination.

“I grew up and heard many versions of family stories, and it was sort of funny, every time I asked the story would change a little bit,” she said. “And this play is sort of me as an adult sifting through and finding out what maybe is fact and what maybe is something that we hold onto, and what that means as those facts and stories kind of change, how they affect our identity.”

Hall Lee eventually took over Yee Wah, but closed it in the late ’60s. (Bailey Lee said it was closed to make way for a shopping mall that was never built.) He studied at the University of Pittsburgh, and went on to work as a draftsman at Westinghouse Electric Company. He faced discrimination, she said, but while he made his way, it was at the cost of things like his language and culture.

Bailey Lee’s late father, Warren, was the son of Hall Lee and his wife, a white woman from West Virginia. Lee herself has blonde hair and green eyes, and grew up without any Chinese culture.

“When my grandfather came he experienced hardship and trauma that I can’t really imagine,” she said. “And through necessity and through great love my Papa has had to put some of those things away to build our family. By repressing some language … by closing different chapters of his life, lovingly through assimilation, my Papa has built a life, but now I get the privilege of getting to make a play about it.”

The show is co-created and directed by Lee’s husband, Coleman Ray Clark.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

REVIEW: The Princess is Right!

<<Press Start>>: Feralcat’s note-perfect ‘Disassembly’ thrills and, occasionally, stresses

Irene Monteverde, Aedan Symons, Feralcat, Allen Bell, Chris “Trip” Trepagnier, and Matt Elias. Photographs by Renee Rosensteel.

Continuing Recital’s sponsored partnership with the New Hazlett Theater, we are presenting a series of editorially-independent previews and reviews of the 2021–22 Community Supported Art (CSA) Performance Series. Below is our review of Disassembly by Feralcat, a collaborative response from Recital editor David Bernabo and guest panelists Matt Aelmore and PJ Roduta. Read their bios at the end of the review.

By David Bernabo

Before we start, I should be honest. I’ve been procrastinating on writing this review. Yes, it’s been hard to string together a few hours of free time to write lately, but this is partly because after watching Feralcat’s multimedia performance Disassembly, I’ve often found myself on Youtube watching gameplay videos. 10 hours of the bizarre, laws of reality-testing 2019 action-adventure game Control? Yeah, I’ll skim through that. A deep dive into David O’Reilly’s surreal Alan Watts-narrated Everything? Yes, I’m 100% here for rolling bears and giant space harps. Cap it off with object-altering games like Superliminimal and Katamari Damacy? Sure!

These selections certainly say more about me than Disassembly, but as a person who wasn’t allowed to own a video game console until my late teens–admittedly, I would have been on that thing all day–I love watching other people play video games. I have no desire to go around and virtually murder foes with swords or bullets or spells, solve puzzles, or world-build, but I’ll gladly watch someone else do it–meaning, watching Disassembly was an easy sell.

Feralcat

<<press start>>

Feralcat, so far, has been known for music–precisely-delivered jazz fusion (I suppose) that is at times smooth and sleek or barbed with influences of metal and prog–but Disassembly is an evolution of the Feralcat project’s scope. It’s a leap into storytelling via video game cut scenes–you know, those movie-like sequences in a video game where the user has no control over the action (“cut away from the action”) and, often, plot is developed. Styled in glorious 2D pixel art along with more glossy character portraits, these scenes are projected onto a stage-wide screen. Underneath these plot-guiding projections, Feralcat, performing in both solo and band settings, soundtracks the story while clothed in futuristic jumpsuits with uneven pant legs on a colorful, Tron-like grid of light protruding toward the audience.

The plot involves a tale of technology run amok. Cyborgs created by humans evolve to a point where humanity is in the way. The humans, in order to save themselves, have to destroy the mainframe that is effectively sustaining the cyborgs.

This framework allows for a number of fun details. The human president has the initials AOC while MAGAisms are peppered into the cyborg’s messaging. The cyborgs use their eco-conscious accomplishments to effectively greenwash their true omnicidal goals. And there is a possible nod to Francis Ford Coppola’s use of juxtaposition in The Godfather films when the wedding of Ignacio and Eden, our main characters, is paralleled with a cyborg attack. Bonus: Feralcat’s consistent use of a salute to cue the next video emulates a level ending move like how Mario or Luigi throw a peace sign when they slide down the flag.

Irene Monteverde and Allen Bell

Despite focusing on video games, Disassembly is akin to a live-scored silent film. These kinds of events have been happening in Pittsburgh (and elsewhere) for some time, often at the Three Rivers Film Festival. (The Alloy Orchestra frequently scored a silent film classic to open or close the festival, and in 2003, supergroup Text of Light paid homage to the Stan Brakhage film that provided the band’s name.) The contemporary live score allows musicians to play composed or improvised music alongside a silent film, which historically would have had a pianist or organist performing at each screening. In these settings, the film is a fixed length and the musician is beholden to the moving image in regards to timing. Interestly, in Disassembly, the music dictates the length of a scene. If the song is four minutes long, the cut scene may loop for a bit until the music reaches a certain point. Feralcat, in our preview interview and in the post-performance Q&A, discussed how pre-existing songs were the initial basis for the early storyboarding and game development. Later, more songs were written and the story was expanded.

Earlier when recounting the plot, I was hesitant to get too detailed. Aspects of the story were lost on our panel. There are deceptions embedded in Eden’s storyline, and there’s some sort of meta-reality where Ignacio and a scientist recount a dream (or was it reality?). The story also presents questions about transhumanism, transforming hate into something constructive, and ideas of healing and community.

The review panel’s confusion on key plot points was due to two things. 1) The narrative reasonably has a few gaps. The video game and overall story are still in-development. It’s safe to assume that this performance is a work-in-progress or perhaps more appropriately, a resting point in an ongoing project. There are Seinfeld-esque yada yada yada moments where one scene presents a dilemma or task and the next scene quickly resolves it.That’s not how an audience traditionally digests a story, but given this project’s current scope, it is appropriate. 2) On the whole, the plot is followable, but the music and the video images are both powerful draws for the audience’s attention. If you strictly follow the screen, sure, you can grok the story, but you will miss out on the complexity of the music–the time signature changes, the intense grooves, and the power of Feralcat’s impassioned melodies. If you are tempted to look down–maybe your eye wants to place where those gnarly guitar solos are coming from–you may miss a crucial entrance of a character or a set of characters or even a temporal reality shift. Within the performance, there are hints at choose-your-own adventure capabilities, but the audience lives that choice: story or music?

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Broadway World: PAPA

Left to right: Bailey Lee as herself, Arnold Y. Kim as “Papa,” and Frances Dell Bendert as “Mom”

Bailey Lee Celebrates Grandfather and Asian American Heritage in New Play PAPA At New Hazlett Theater

Papa premieres on Thursday, April 7 at 8 PM and Friday, April 8 at 11 AM & 8 PM.

 Mar. 21, 2022  

The New Hazlett Theater is thrilled to present Bailey Lee’s new work, Papa, as the conclusion to the 9th Season of Community Supported Art (CSA). Premiering live onstage April 7-8, Papa is an original play created and performed by Bailey Lee that celebrates Asian American heritage. The CSA Series provides emerging artists in Pittsburgh with the opportunity to develop new work for the New Hazlett stage.

“What a joy to watch an artist like Lee create a brand new piece of theater over this year,” says Director of Programming Kristin Helfrich. “The first draft felt like it had been waiting in the wings for this moment. Excited to bring this well-crafted Pittsburgh story about ancestry and heritage to our stage.”

Actress, writer, and theatre-maker Bailey Lee spent most of her life knowing very little about her “Papa’s” life story other than that he immigrated from China and was now a McKeesport fixture. As an adult, she began to understand that her grandfather had repressed much of his Chinese heritage in an effort to assimilate into American culture as a “good citizen.”

“My papa immigrated from China at a very young age,” said Lee. “He experienced trauma and loss, and lovingly held back language, stories, and family history in an effort to protect his family and assimilate. My Papa is a person with a servant’s heart and has worked his whole life to give life to the next generation. I’m writing this play to honor him and celebrate his life.”

Through drama, music, and puppetry Lee recounts her grandfather’s journey from the farmlands of rural China to the hills of McKeesport. Papa unpacks the Lee family’s memories, fantasies, and heartaches, tracing the complicated relationship between three generations of Asian Americans.

“When I was 15, my father passed away unexpectedly,” Lee continued. “Since then, every conversation that I’ve had with my Papa is in relation to the loss of my dad. This is a play about generational grief and love and the dreams that we sow into the next generation.”

The cast includes stage and screen veteran Arnold Y. Kim as “Papa,” Frances Dell Bendert as “Mom,” and Lee as herself. All actors double as “others” through this ensemble production.

Papa premieres on Thursday, April 7 at 8 PM and Friday, April 8 at 11 AM & 8 PM. Tickets are available for purchase on the New Hazlett website and range from $15-$25. Allegheny County library card holders can claim $5 tickets to the Friday matinee through RadPass.org.

Each year the CSA Performance Series supports five emerging Pittsburgh artists as they develop a new work for the New Hazlett stage. The artists featured in the 2021/22 season range from up-and-coming playwrights to inventive musicians to a sassy Queen with a heart of gold. Past CSA contributors include recording artist Brittany Chantele, choreographer Kaylin Horgan, and director/playwright Tlaloc Rivas. Through the CSA program, the New Hazlett Theater provides opportunities for diverse voices to shape the future of theater and connect audiences with fresh productions that challenge their perceptions about the performing arts.

“It’s really rare in this industry to find artistic organizations that open up their resources unconditionally to emerging artists,” said CSA artist Bailey Lee in an interview with Recital Magazine’s David Bernabo. “That’s what the CSA does. It has instilled confidence not only in this piece but in me as an artist.”

Papa is premiering live onstage at the New Hazlett Theater. In order to ensure a safe experience for all audience members, masks, photo ID, and proof of vaccination are required. Prior to attending, please see the most updated health and safety guidelines. Accessible seating and assistive listening devices are available for all productions. Please email New Hazlett Theater with any questions.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

PREVIEW: The Princess is Right!

“My heart says that this instrument and my playing of this instrument is meant for the front.”

 

Feralcat, circa 2019

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

PREVIEW: The Princess is Right!

Musician Feralcat brings Disassembly to the big stage at New Hazlett Theater

By 

Feralcat in Disassembly - PHOTO: NEW HAZLETT THEATER

Photo: New Hazlett Theater
Feralcat in Disassembly

Pittsburgh-based musician Feralcat has been building a name for himself in the local scene for years. Whether performing as a solo act or with his band Feralcat and the Wild, you’ve likely heard of him or heard his genre-defying music. Now, he brings a unique hybrid of music and video to the stage at North Side’s New Hazlett Theater as a part of its CSA performance series.

“Disassembly is an audio-visual experience. Maybe you’ve seen an orchestra perform the soundtrack music to a beloved video game or movie while video clips from the game/movie play in the background,” says Feralcat. “Or maybe you’ve seen one of those old silent movies, scored by a live orchestra. These are the kinds of experiences I’m trying to emulate, with some video game nostalgia that I hold dear.”

New Hazlett describes Disassembly as a sci-fi animated drama with a protagonist fighting for humanity in a “post-apocalyptic scenescape where androids take over the world.” It’s part concert and part theatrical performance.

Feralcat says the multimedia show displays animated visual cutscenes from a yet-to-be-made sci-fi, cyberpunk, retro video game. Accompanying the visual scenes will be a 15-track long concert, written, arranged, and produced by Feralcat, that he’ll perform both on his own and with his band, Feralcat and the Wild.

His performance at the New Hazlett Theater will be the first time many people will hear the new music he’s been working on, according to Feralcat, who says it may show the audience a side of him they may not have come to expect.

“I split the story and music up into two ‘chapters.’ Chapter One is all music that is produced, recorded, and performed by me as a solo artist, and is incorporated into the first half of the show,” he says. “Chapter Two is music that I perform and record with my band, and is incorporated in the second half of the show.”

Because he plays saxophone, Feralcat says he often gets categorized as a jazz musician. But while he says he is deeply influenced by the tradition of jazz and other Black American musical practices, he considers Disassembly to be his “genre-less love child.”

“Most folks around town and on the internet know me as a saxophone player, musician, and performer. For Disassembly, I’m revealing my work as an amateur fiction writer and filmmaker. I wrote the script to Disassembly intermittently over a year and a half or so, after recognizing that I wanted to explore this side of myself during the performance lulls of early lockdown (2020-2021),” he says. “With the help of an animation studio called Cold Beverage Studios, we were able to storyboard my story beats, create beautiful illustrations of my characters, and develop detailed pixel art environments.”

He says the end result of that collaboration is a 45-minute animated visual people will watch in sync with the concert at New Hazlett.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

REVIEW: The Princess is Right!

The Princess Is Right! is a delirious concoction of quick-witted jokes, multimedia experimentation, and economic assistance

Photographs by Renee Rosensteel.

The game show is a fantastical setting. It’s a place where you can win money, a car, a treadmill, a box of harmonicas, a date, a marriage, or a live goat–yes, all taxable if over $600 in value. It’s a space that is sectioned off from the miseries of the world–but surely stewing in all its capitalist glory–where upward mobility is the name of the game. Best of all, it’s a place where calculated risks can change your life, mostly for the positive. And it’s a perfect environment for Pittsburgh’s self-proclaimed local villain Princess Jafar to skewer, recontextualize, and reinvent.

Drag artist Princess Jafar presented The Princess Is Right! as part of the New Hazlett Theater’s 9th CSA season. The evening-length performance is a wildly entertaining take on the game show format, but it also borrows heavily from late night shows like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman. A rotating cast of guests, prize games, and video sketches keep the flow moving swiftly, and the anything goes structure of the performance allows ample room for both humor and societal critique. Arriving after a series of finely done riffs on TV culture like an Xmas special at the Alloy Theater, a talk show at Club Cafe, and a pandemic-era Zoom-streamed Easter Eggstravaganza, The Princess Is Right! is a delirious concoction of quick-witted jokes and asides, multimedia experimentation, and economic assistance (somebody won a washer and dryer set).

The name Princess Jafar immediately sends us back in time, 30 years ago, to the world of Disney’s animated film Aladdin. Jafar is the film’s power-hungry antagonist. Based on three characters in the Aladdin story from One Thousand and One Nights aka Arabian Nights, Jafar seeks a magic lamp whose genie would be obligated to hand-deliver Jafar enough cosmic power to take over the world, ushering in a narcissistic dystopia. Self-proclaimed pop superstar Princess Jafar, who sometimes incorporates elements of the Princess Jasmine character in merch and press materials, shares Jafar’s overall goal–global domination–but seemingly has more benevolent intentions, as we’ll explore below.

The evening begins when kidmental (playing the Paul Shaffer or Kevin Eubanks or Geoff Peterson co-host/bandleader character) kicks off The Princess Is Right! theme song, interjecting in a flashy radio announcer voice, “we have games and prizes, cash and surprises, all the nice products and greenbacks, you’ll sure to be back every night.” Princess Jafar enters and immediately goes into a Late Night bit, riffing with kidmental about the recent holidays, cancel culture, and the price of beauty. There’s a mix of purposely bad jokes (a ceramicist friend making 8 figures a year) and cheeky jokes (“I can’t get these apps to work. I keep sending these guys my pics, and they keep asking for a whole pic. I mean, are they only getting half?”). Later, Princess Jafar dons a turban to riff on the Carnac the Magnificent character, reclaiming Johnny Carson’s “mystic from the East” (via Nebraska) through Princess Jafar’s Arab-American background. The bit kind of flounders (under intentionally bad jokes?), but redeems itself with a poignant rebuttal to America’s epidemic of police violence. These sections are quick-paced and benefit from good chemistry between Princess Jafar and kidmental.

From the get go, there is no fourth wall. Our host is addressing us, the audience. But there’s something else going on. Princess Jafar continuously references the script that her and kidmental are reading from. In doing this, the audience is made aware that a game show is being played, but also, that it is being performed. Without the rules necessary to run a daily game show, Princess Jafar is free to experiment.

Video works are peppered throughout the performance. A video sketch about a nanny and a child possessed by Phyllis Diller brought out the audience laughs, and rightfully so; it is hilarious. Many of the other videos are short experiments, surreal gags, and goofy parodies, along with a few advertisements. All in all, the video segments are charming and lead to a what-will-happen-next style of anticipation.

Livefromthecity

The performance is surely collaborative with guests arriving in-person and virtually via pre-edited videos. While many of the jokes and bits are the same for each performance, each night has a few surprise guests. (Our panel reviewed the Friday night performance, and video of the Thursday night performance was made available by the New Hazlett Theater.) In many cases, guest talents are limited to minimal tasks like modeling prizes. But some guests get to collaborate on segments. After helping with hat and wig changes, Bae Le Stray gets to co-host the “Bae or Stray” segment, which emulates Le Stray’s Twitch/Youtube series. In the Thursday night performance, hip hop artist Livefromthecity does a show takeover and stages a show-within-a-show dubbed “Live After Dark.” kidmental is reintroduced and the show starts over. Livefromthecity retells the ceramicist joke and the audience seems much more excited the second time around.

But even with the wealth of people walking on and off stage, this show lives or dies with Princess Jafar. She is directly responsible for the pacing and the energy level of the show, and to that end, our panel was impressed with her stamina. She completely pulls it off, stitching the different events of the performance together with an enthusiasm that pours over bouts of snark, vanity, jugular-approaching critique, and community building.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

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