Did You Eat? (
by Zoë Kim
JUNE 12, 8PM
JUNE 15, 11AM
CAST & CREATIVE TEAM
Zoë Kim
Chris Yejin
Monalisa Amidar Playwright/Performer Director Stage Directions
by Zoë Kim
“Did You Eat? (밥먹었니?) is an autobiographical solo show about how we learn to love, how we love, and how we love ourselves. It’s a love letter to my inner child and hopefully to yours, too.” - Zoë Kim
On Subject Matter
Subject matter deals with: talk of child abuse, self-harm, and suicide.
About This Reading
This is meant to be a physical play. As you are watching, imagine the scenes to have a fully expressed physical life to support the text.
Special Thanks
Nina Ki, Suzan-Lori Parks, Seayoung Yim, Jeana Scotti, Soomi Kim, and Madhuri Shekar.
Helpful Vocabulary
Most commonly used Korean words in the play:
Umma - Mom
Appa - Dad
Halmeoni - Grandmother
Harabeoji - Grandfather
All Korean used in the play includes an English translation that will be projected.
Related Resources
Equal Parts Spoken Word Poem
Are you more Korean or are you more American?
People ask me this all the time, like, I can’t be equal parts of both.
I spent my childhood in Korea but I’m spending my adulthood in America. I cry in Korean but laugh in English. Koreans say I’m too American but Americans say I’ll never be American enough.
I carry the responsibility of a Korean daughter but seek the freedom of an American daughter.
I’m my mother’s American dream, the same dream that’s made me feel so trapped, sometimes.
I can’t call home to talk about my hard life in America, because it could never be harder than the life I would’ve had in Korea.
I can’t tell her, how dehumanized and dismissed I feel, how invisible and misplaced I am, how my body is no more than someone’s fetish, how my almond eyes and golden skin could get me killed, how the model minority myth denies me right to be outraged, And how, as it turns out, the American dream favors the privileged?
How can I, when the only thing that keeps my mother going, is telling people:
(My daughter is American.)
Like I’m her ticket to the promised land?
I’m an American to my mother but an Asian to everybody else.
So am I more Korean or am I more American?
I’m Korean and American.
I’m equal parts.
More from the Playwright
Phone Call Short Film
Phone Call
Why everyone with a Korean mom needs to go to therapy.
Seoulful Productions
Zoë is the Founder of Seoulful Productions, a Korean-American women-led 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose primary mission is to create artistic experiences that celebrate the culture.
A Blessing for the Audience
I wish,
For Fathers to value their daughters. For Mothers to believe their daughters.
For you to ask a loved one how they would like to be loved.
For you to share how you would like to be loved.
For you to practice radical love for yourself and for others.
Did you eat?
You Are Cordially Invited To the End of the World! by
Keiko Green
JUNE 14, 8PM
JUNE 16, 2PM
CREATIVE TEAM
Keiko Green
Zi Alikhan
Victoria Minton
Alex Voeller Playwright Director Stage Manager Casting Apprentice
CAST
Jerome Beck
Orlando Arriga
Jamie Rezanour
Breanna Deanda
Zak Reynolds
Laurel Collins
Vermont Horner M Greg Viv
Ensemble A
Ensemble B
Ensemble C Stage Directions
You Are Cordially Invited To the End of the World! by Keiko Green
A Word About the Play from The Creatives
M has always had a complicated relationship with their parents. But when Greg gets a terminal diagnosis, their small family feels the pressure of time running out. Greg wants to expand his world, as he commits the rest of his life to fighting climate change, while his wife Viv wants nothing more than to keep Greg confined to their home. In this theatrical spectacle, M uses metatheatricality and the joy of dance and theatre to explore themes of grief, dying, and our connection to the Earth.
On Subject Matter
Subject matter deals with: mortality, terminal illness, & climate grief.
Things to Know
“Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing regardless of how it turns out… [This] hope… gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.” - Playwright Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace
We ask that you approach this play with hope, knowing it is worth witnessing here and now in this moment here in a very warm June in Fort Worth, Texas. Don’t be afraid to dance through it all with us!
On Climate Anxiety and Grief
“So at the moment the situation appears grim. And yet there are plenty of reasons to feel hopeful about the future. To name just a few: (NOTE TO EDITOR Please insert some reasons to feel hopeful about the future, if you can think of any).” - Comedian Dave Barry
Like this quote, You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! is a humorously dark play about cancer, grief, climate change, and how we process things out of our control. We at Amphibian want to add some helpful resources in the spirit of care for the weight of those topics stirred by this play.
READ
The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions by Greta Thunberg
“We still have time to change the world.”Climate Activist Greta Thunberg
Purchase a copy at:
https://bit.ly/GretaClimateBookBUY
CONNECT
Cancer Support Community North Texas (Tarrant County)
Find a group at: https://bit.ly/CancerSupportNT
ACT
Aim for a Plastic Free July this year!
Learn more at: https://bit.ly/PlasticFreeJuly2024b
More from the Playwright
Connect to Keiko Green’s New Play Exchange page.
Read more about another recent play by Keiko Green, The Bed Trick
by Alex Lin
JUNE 13, 8PM
JUNE 15, 3PM
CREATIVE TEAM
Alex Lin
Iris McCloughlan
Christine Zak
Ally Varitek Playwright Director Stage Manager Casting Apprentice
CAST
Emma Kikue
Max Morgan
Jovane Camaaño
Johanna Nchekwube Yifei Max Nurse’s Assistant Nurse Stage Directions
barren by Alex Lin
Yifei is barren. What crueler irony is there for a baby doctor who can’t have a baby? One that tasks her with ensuring a safe, happy, and healthy delivery for her formerly estranged younger sister, Max. barren is the story of two sisters who confront two entirely different fates in finding, creating, and embracing family.
On Subject Matter
Subject matter deals with: child abuse, infertility, pregnancy, miscarriages, and substance abuse
Related Resources
If you are affected by the discussion of fertility in this play, know there are local support groups here in DFW: https://www.dfwfertility.com/fertility-supportgroups/
About this Play/On Adaptations
Did you know that barren is an adaptation?
Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca’s Yerma centers around a childless woman in rural Spain who desperately wants to be a mother. Lorca himself describes the play as a “tragic poem,” and this story has been adapted many times since its original production in 1934.
Some notable recent adaptations include In the Red and Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney (2007), a loose adaptation of Yerma set in a housing project in Louisiana and the 2016 minimalist adaptation by Simon Stone starring Billie Piper (known for playing Rose Tyler in Doctor Who). The latter production can be rented from National Theatre At Home: https://www.ntathome.com/products/yerma.
Playwright Alex Lin has adapted this version in a similar tragic poem for two Asian American sisters for today’s times in barren.
We’ve asked Alex, “What inspired you to write this adaptation?”
”As a woman diagnosed with fertility complications at a young age, I've had to be extremely conscious of the how, when, where, and why behind family planning. Perhaps that's why I'm completely and utterly fascinated by Lorca's Yerma, the tale of a woman who wants nothing more in the world than to have a child who is barren. Still, I always wondered what a modern version of this Yerma might look like, one that isn't tethered by the whims of a flighty husband. In the world of IVF, adoption, and single motherhood by choice, who is Yerma today? And what is her relationship to other women her sisters who can bear children so easily? This is the birthplace (haha) of barren. An exploration of pursuing motherhood, building families, and being a woman in a rapidly changing world. “
- Alex Lin, Playwright
More from the Playwright
Connect to Alex Lin’s New Play Exchange page.
Learn more about adapting the classics for contemporary times in Alex’s class with Dallas’ Echo Theatre!
a page dedicated to pregnancy loss. the following are real posts from an infertility forum.
Remembering my Sterling today, we lost him at 15w. He changed my life forever.
It’s been nearly a year since my loss at 6 weeks I think of our little bean often and mourn what could have been. We have a memory box that is inscribed “carried for a moment, loved for a lifetime”.
The joy and hope is always with us. ♥
Grief has gotten easier with time but I will never forget
It's seven o'clock. Thinking of our two lost babies, conceived so far apart they could have walked the world together if they had made it here Our first, who rocked our worlds and thrust us into this new phase, our second, who has left my body changed forever.
Thinking today of my little miracle and ray of hope. I found out about you while my dad was in the ICU and we were discussing hospice with him. When I lost you, my already broken heart was devastated.
Remembering my 5 losses today and sending love to you all.
It feels like everyone else has forgotten, but I don't think I'll ever stop being sad.