Resources
PING CHONG AND COMPANY: RESOURCES RELATED TO ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSITION
An Extra Ordinary Afternoon with Ping Chong and Company, June 24, 2023
All Islands Connect Underwater: A Celebration of Ping Chong and Bruce Allardice, January 25, 2023
PCC RECENT NEWS ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS
“In a Land of Primary Colors, Home Is Where the Bounce House Is”
New York Times / January 2024
“Nile Harris and Crackhead Barney on Art and Exploitation”
Interview Magazine / January 2023
“Mei Ann Teo Joins Ping Chong & Co.’s Leadership Team”
American Theatre Magazine / June 2023
“For a Pioneering Artist, the Joy of Having Done the Work His Way”
New York Times / January 2023
Casting a Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative
Edited by Claire Syler & Daniel Banks
Publisher: Routledge (July 23, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1138594474 / ISBN-13: 978-1138594470
Drawing on the notion of a "welcome table"—a space where artists of all backgrounds can come together as equals to create theatre—the book’s contributors discuss casting practices as they relate to varying communities and contexts, including Middle Eastern American theatre, Disability culture, multilingual performance, Native American theatre, color- and culturally-conscious casting, and casting as a means to dismantle stereotypes. Includes the chapter, “Collidescope 2.0: Performing the ‘Alien Gaze,’” by Priscilla Page.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS and ARTICLES
Undesirable Elements: Real People, Real Lives, Real Theater
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (October 30, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1559363975 / ISBN-13: 978-1559363976
This compilation features four complete scripts as well as interviews with Ping Chong and past collaborators, presenters, and cast members.
Benea, Diana. "Producing Community: A Process-Oriented Analysis of Ping Chong + Company's Undesirable Elements: Generation NYZ (2018)." American Dramaturgies For the 21st Century, edited by Julie Vatain-Corfdir, Sorbonne Université Presses, 2021, pp.217-240.
Rahman, Zeyba; Zatz, Sara; Khafagy, Amir. “Ping Chong and Company’s Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity.” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 2021, pp. 1–15.
Benea, Diana. “'Turning Setbacks into Comebacks’: Representing Disability in Ping Chong’s Inside/ Out...Voices from the Disability Community.” BAS - British & American Studies, vol. 23, Jan 2017, p. 109-120.
Christopherson, Jody. “Interview: Ping Chong on the Undesirable Elements Festival.” HuffPost / October 11, 2012
Dudley, David. “Your Guide to Theatre Education: Ping Chong + Company.” Howlround Theatre Commons, 15 Feb 2016.
Aesthetic Practices and Politics in Media, Music, and Art: Performing Migration
Edited by Rocío G. Davis, Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, & Johanna C. Kardux
Publisher: Routledge (February 14, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0415835917 / ISBN-13: 978-0415835916
This volume analyzes innovative forms of media and music (art installations, televisions commercials, photography, films, songs, telenovelas) to examine the performance of migration in contemporary culture. Includes the chapter, “‘All Islands Connect Underwater’: Ping Chong’s Undesirable Elements Series,” by Roberta De Martini.
Kurahashi, Yuko. “Celebrating the ‘Historical’ Community through Different Voices: Ping Chong and Talvin Wilks’s ‘Women of the Hill.’” Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theater and Performance, vol. 3, no.1, May 2016, pp.1-20.
Enacting History
Edited by Scott Magelssen & Rhona Justice-Malloy
Publisher: University of Alabama Press (March 18, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0817356541 / ISBN-13: 978-0817356545
A collection of new essays exploring the world of historical performances. The volume focuses on performances outside the traditional sphere of theatre, among them living history museums, battle reenactments, pageants, renaissance festivals, and adventure-tourism destinations. Includes the essay, “Ping Chong & Company’s Undesirable Elements/Secret Histories in Oxford, Mississippi,” by Rhona Justice Malloy.
Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters
Edited by Michael Balfour
Publisher: Intellect Books (November 15, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1841506370 / ISBN-13: 978-1841506371
Exploring theater works created for, by, and with refugees, this hybrid collection of essays combines newly commissioned scholarly work with examples of writing by refugees themselves. Includes the chapter, “Theatre as a Healing Space: Ping Chong’s Children of War,” by Yuko Kurahashi.
Samson, Florence. “Drama in Aesthetic Education: An Invitation to Imagine the World as if It Could Be Otherwise.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol.39, no. 4, (Winter 2005), pp. 70-81
RESOURCES ABOUT PING CHONG
La MaMa Archive
Ping Chong Archive at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Video and Media Resources
Books About and Featuring Ping Chong
The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong
By Yuko Kurahashi
Publisher: McFarland (December 24, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1476674191 / ISBN-13: 978-1476674193
Drawing on primary sources and her own attendance of Ping Chong’s productions, this book takes a broad and informative approach to Ping Chong’s work as a performer, playwright, and director.
Out of the Shadows: The Henson Festivals and Their Impact on Contemporary Puppet Theater
By Leslee Asch
Publisher: InForm Press (July 8, 2020)
ISBN-10: 0578665344 / ISBN-13: 978-0578665344
Examines the five International Festivals of Puppet Theater presented by the Jim Henson Foundation between 1992-2000, and their continued legacy in the contemporary puppet theater landscape. The book also includes production photos and details from their 136 productions, including the work of Ping Chong among others.
A Race So Different: Performance and Law in Asian America
By Joshua Chambers-Letson
Publisher: New York University Press (December 2, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0814769969 / ISBN-13: 978-0814769966
Taking a performance studies approach to understanding Asian American racial subjectivity, Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson argues that the law influences racial formation by compelling Asian Americans to embody and perform recognizable identities in both popular aesthetic forms (such as theater, opera, or rock music) and in the rituals of everyday life.
Hearing Difference: The Third Ear in Experimental, Deaf, and Multicultural Theater
By Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren
Publisher: Gallaudet University Press (May 15, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1563682902 / ISBN-13: 978-1563682902
This book investigates the connections between hearing and deafness in experimental, Deaf, and multicultural theater, focusing on how to articulate a Deaf aesthetic and employing a model using a device for cross-sensory listening across domains of sound, silence, and the moving body in performance that she calls the “third ear.”
Vanishing Acts: Theater Since the Sixities
By Gordon Rogoff
Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 2000)
ISBN-10: 0300087772 / ISBN-13: 978-0300087772
In this collection of 75 essays and short pieces, Rogoff tells the story of live theater in America over the past forty years and explores the topics of acting, directing, playwrighting, Shakespeare productions, opera, and theatre criticism, including a look at a production of Ping Chong’s Kind Ness.
National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage
By Karen Shimakawa
Publisher: Duke University Press (December 5, 2002)
ISBN-10: 0822328232 / ISBN-13: 978-0822328230
This book explores the vexed relationship between "Asian Americanness" and "Americanness” through a focus on drama and performance art. Karen Shimakawa argues that the forms of Asian Americanness that appear in U.S. culture are a function of national abjection—a process that demands that Americanness be defined by the exclusion of Asian Americans, who are either cast as symbolic foreigners incapable of integration or Americanization or distorted into an “honorary” whiteness.
Reading the Literatures of Asian America
Edited by Shirley Lim & Amy Ling
Publisher: Temple University Press (October 19,1992)
ISBN-10: 0877229368 / ISBN-13: 978-0877229360
Presents a collection of essays that examines Asian American literature from the late 19th century up through the contemporary experimental drama of Ping Chong. This book addresses the work of writers with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, East Indian, and Pacific Island ancestry. Includes the chapter, “Ping Chong’s Terra In/Cognita: Monsters on Stage,” by Suzanne R. Westfall.
Yellow Light: The Flowering of Asian American Arts
Edited by Amy Ling
Publisher: Temple University Press (April 1, 1999)
ISBN-10: 1566396700 / ISBN-13: 978-1566396707
A volume of poets, novelists, dramatists, musicians, songwriters, composers, filmmakers, choreographers, and performance artists who span three generations and represent the broad spectrum of ethnicities that make up Asian America. Includes the chapter, “Ping Chong’s Terra In/Cognita: Monsters on Stage,” by Suzanne R. Westfall.
Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters
Edited by Michael Balfour
Publisher: Intellect Books (November 15, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1841506370 / ISBN-13: 978-1841506371
Exploring theater works created for, by, and with refugees, this hybrid collection of essays combines newly commissioned scholarly work with examples of writing by refugees themselves. Includes the chapter, “Theatre as a Healing Space: Ping Chong’s Children of War,” by Yuko Kurahashi.
Translation, Adaptation and Transformation
Edited by Laurence Raw
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic (January 2, 2014)
ISBN-10: 1472531299 / ISBN-13: 978-1472531292
In recent years adaptation studies has established itself as a discipline in its own right, separate from translation studies. The bulk of its activity to date has been restricted to literature and film departments, focusing on questions of textual transfer and adaptation of text to film. It is however, much more interdisciplinary, and is not simply a case of transferring content from one medium to another. This collection furthers the research into exactly what the act of adaptation involves and whether it differs from other acts of textual rewriting. Includes the essay, “Adapting, Translating, and Transforming: Cultural Mediation in Ping Chong’s Deshima and Pojagi,” by Tanfer Emin Tunç.
Querying Difference in Theater History
Edited by Scott Megalssen & Ann Huago
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (October 1, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1847183034 / ISBN-13: 978-1847183033
Terms such as race, ethnicity, otherness, and pluralism are becoming increasingly problematic as we grapple with issues of identity in the post-multicultural discursive landscape of the twenty-first century. Querying Difference in Theatre History comprises sixteen scholarly case studies in which authors tease out the limitations of contemporary discourse concerning ideas of difference in theatre history today. Includes the chapter, “Haunted Landscapes: Ping Chong’s East/West Productions,” by Kay Martinovich.
BOOKS AND PUBLISHED SCRIPTS BY PING CHONG
Undesirable Elements: Real People, Real Lives, Real Theater
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (October 30, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1559363975 / ISBN-13: 978-1559363976
This compilation features four complete scripts as well as interviews with Ping Chong and past collaborators, presenters, and cast members.
The East/West Quartet
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (January 1, 2004)
ISBN-10: 1559362294 / ISBN-13: 978-1559362290
A compilation of the four plays of the East-West Quartet: Deshima (1990), Chinoiserie (1995), After Sorrow (1997), and Pojagi (1999).
Between Worlds: Contemporary Asian-American Plays
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (January 1, 1993)
ISBN-10: 1559360043 / ISBN-13: 978-1559360043
This anthology features plays focused on themes relating to the duality of the Asian-American experience including Ping Chong’s Nuit Blanche (1981). Edited by Misha Berson.
Tokens?: The NYC Asian American Experience on Stage
Publisher: Temple University Press (January 20, 2000)
ISBN-10: 1889876100 / ISBN-13: 978-1889876108
A collection of plays and performance pieces from the 1999 Asian American Writers’ Workshop featuring Ping Chong and Muna Tseng’s SlutForArt collaboration. Edited by Alvin Eng.
Version 3.0 Contemporary Asian American Plays
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (August 2, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1559363630 / ISBN-13: 978-1559363631
An anthology of contemporary Asian American drama, including the series of short plays, The Square, for which Ping Chong created Excerpts From the Diary of a Chinese Envoy (2000). Edited by Chaw Yew.
Cocktail
Publisher: Silkworm Books (May 21, 2009)
ISBN-10: 9749511689 / ISBN-13: 9789749511688
A play about the life and HIV drug development work of Dr. Krisana Kraisintu.
Cathay: Three Tales of China
Publisher: Theatre Forum, no. 28, Winter/Spring 2006, pp. 48-67.
A puppet theater work about China's ancient past, its tumultuous recent history, and its 21st century reemergence as a global economic force.
Snow
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group, Plays in Process 10, no. 9 (1989)
An anthology, consisting of multiple narratives framed by a single recurring one, loosely adopted from Alain Robbe-Grillet’s In The Labyrinth.
Kind Ness
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group, Plays in Process 8, no. 9 (1988)
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group, New Plays USA 4, no. 1 (1988)
A poignant but surreal coming of age comedy that follows the friendships of six characters from their elementary school days through their college years.
Nuit Blanche
Publisher: VRI Arts Publishers, (1986)
Performance composed of interwoven narratives spanning history and countries across the world that create a dreamlike meditation on the state of human existence.
Truth & Beauty
Publisher: American Theatre Magazine, vol. 18, no. 3, March 2001, p. 29-44.
A multi-media exploration of the American psyche in an advertising, marketing and gun obsessed age.
SlutForArt
Publisher: PAJ: A Journal of Performance & Art 22, no. 64 (2000), pp. 11-128.
Muna Tseng’s stunning and moving visual dance-theater solo performance, on the life and work of her brother Tseng Kwong Chi, a photographer, performance artist, downtown personality who died of AIDs in 1990.