We’ve covered this play before, so it begs the question what prompts us to offer up details about this production, too. Simply put, Lauren Yee is a graduate of UC San Diego and this marks a homecoming for her in addition to a local premiere.

In Yee’s play a young woman tries to wrap her head around her family and its history three decades after her father left Cambodia. The way into this story is through the rock ‘n’ roll music of Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s.

The play features music by Los Angeles band Dengue Fever who celebrate precisely the kind of music depicted in Cambodian Rock Band. They wrote the songs for the play.

Yee has received great reviews for this play across the country and it is one of the most produced plays regionally this year.

The cast in this production includes Brooke Ishibashi, Abraham Kim, Jane Lui, Joe Ngo, James Ryen, Daisuke Tsuji and Moses Villaram. Chay Yew directs.

For tickets go here.

Photo from Cambodian Rock Band by Jim Carmody/Courtesy of the La Jolla Playhouse

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I’ll try to sum the play up differently than I did in March.

The coaches of both an American and Chinese basketball team face off against each other for an exhibition game in 1989. Old animosities and unresolved issues rise to the surface and have nothing to do with their respective teams. One US player’s actions draw unnecessary attention to the game, the coaches and the player himself.

Wong, who was a Tony Award winner for his performance in the original production of M. Butterfly, played the part of the Chinese coach in New York and also in San Francisco. He’s well acquainted with the play.

The cast is Grant Chang, Justin Chien, James Eckhouse and Christine Lin.

Along with Cambodian Rock Band, Yee’s The Great Leap is one of the most-produced plays of the year.

This production of The Great Leap is a co-production with East West Players. The show runs  two hours which includes a 15-minute intermission.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Justin Chien and James Eckhouse by Jenny Graham/Courtesy of the Pasadena Playhouse

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The setting is China in 1989. An exhibition basketball game is being held between a team from a Beijing university and a squad from the University of San Francisco. The game also serves as a showdown between the  American coach, Saul (Arye Gross) and his protégé, Wen Chang (B.D. Wong).  But the addition of Manford (Tim Liu), a high school star from Chinatown, whose actions cause quite a stir, mean that the tensions for all involved escalate beyond that of just a basketball game.

The Great Leap has previously been staged at Denver Center, Seattle Repertory, Atlantic Theatre in New York, and the Guthrie in Minneapolis. For the production in New York, Wong played Chang.

With this production, yet becomes the first Asian-American woman to have a play produced at the Geary in San Francisco. Given her status as one of our most exciting new playwrights, A.C.T.’s production of The Great Leap is a chance to see another chapter in her creative life.

The play runs one hour and forty-five minutes.

Photo by Kevin Berne/Courtesy of A.C.T.

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