Cambodian Rock Band

(Paperback)

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Description

Cambodian Rock Band is an epic play/rock concert that thrusts us into the life of a young woman trying to piece together her family history thirty years after her father fled Cambodia. Featuring actor/musicians who perform a mix of contemporary Dengue Fever hits and classic Cambodian oldies live, Lauren Yee brings to vivid life the Cambodian rock scene of the 60s and 70s, a movement cut short by the Khmer Rouges brutal attempt to erase the music (and musicians) once and for all. A story about survivors, the resilient bond of family, and the enduring power of music.

Reviews

"A haunting, wise, political and personally searing show."-- "Chicago Tribune"
"A kinetic testament about art as activism and music as morality."-- "Stage and Cinema"
"A riveting play that's part mystery, part history lesson, and part unabashed jukebox musical concert."-- "BroadwayWorld"
"Fierce, gorgeous, heartwarming."-- "L.A. Times"
"One of the best plays of the year."-- "Chicago Reader"

Author Bio

Lauren Yee is a playwright born and raised in San Francisco. She currently lives in New York City.

Her play Cambodian Rock Band, with music by Dengue Fever, premiered at South Coast Rep and is at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this season, followed by La Jolla Playhouse and Victory Gardens. Her play The Great Leap has been produced at the Denver Center, Seattle Repertory, Atlantic Theatre, and the Guthrie, with future productions at Arts Club and InterAct Theatre. Also upcoming: The Song of Summer at Trinity Rep.

Yee's play King of the Yees premiered at The Goodman Theatre and Center Theatre Group, followed by productions at ACT Theatre, Canada's National Arts Centre, and Baltimore Center Stage. Other plays include Ching Chong Chinaman (Pan Asian, Mu Performing Arts), The Hatmaker's Wife (Playwrights Realm, Moxie, PlayPenn), Hookman (Encore, Company One), In a Word (SF Playhouse, Cleveland Public, Strawdog), Samsara (Victory Gardens, O'Neill Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival), and The Tiger Among Us (MAP Fund, Mu).

She was a Dramatists Guild fellow, a MacDowell fellow, a MAP Fund grantee, a member of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group, a Time Warner Fellow at the Women's Project Playwrights Lab, the Shank playwright-in-residence at Second Stage Theatre, a Playwrights' Center Core Writer, and the Page One resident playwright at Playwrights Realm.

She is the winner of the Horton Foote Prize, the Kesselring Prize, and the Francesca Primus Prize. She has been a finalist for the Edward M. Kennedy Prize, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the ATCA/Steinberg Award, the Jerome Fellowship, the PONY Fellowship, the Princess Grace Award, the Sundance Theatre Lab, the Wasserstein Prize. Her play The Hatmaker's Wife was an Outer Critics Circle nominee for the John Gassner Award for best play by a new American playwright. Her plays were the #1 and #2 plays on the 2017 Kilroys List.

Yee is a member of the Ma-Yi Theatre Writers Lab, a 2018/2019 Hodder fellow at Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts, and a New Dramatists playwright (class of 2025). She is currently under commission from the Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3, Mixed Blood Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Second Stage Theatre, South Coast Rep, and Trinity Rep. She has written for MIXTAPE (Netflix). BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD.