At the PWC this week: Lauren Yee

Core Writer Lauren Yee is at the Playwrights’ Center this week, workshopping a new Untitled play with director Jen Weir and actors Randy Reyes, Mark Christine, Joseph Ngo, Eric “Pogi” Sumangil, and Sun Mee Chomet. Learn a bit about Lauren in this mini-interview.

What’s something about you that may surprise people?

My first drafts are always quickly written, very sketchy, and sometimes contain zero percent of what actually makes it into the play. What I have to do is go back in and do a bunch more bad drafts until a better draft emerges. So for me, the act of revising is how I write a play. I always wish I wrote plays better and faster, but taking forever is apparently part of my process.

What else have you been working on this year?

I’m finishing up work on King of the Yees, a play about me, my dad, and dying Chinatowns. My father is really larger than life, and has always deserved to have his own play, in my mind. For nearly twenty years, he’s been deeply involved in the Yee Family Association, a Chinese American men’s club that formed almost 150 years ago that still exists today. It’s a joyride through Chinatown and its history, but also a love letter to everything I adore (and hate) about Chinese American culture.

And I’m beginning work on a new play about learning Chinese that may or may not be largely in Chinese. I took two years of Mandarin in college. I was the worst student in the class since I have no facility for foreign language. And I figure it’s about time for me to make use of my terrible Mandarin in service of theater.

What does your writing space look like?

I have to write outside my home. I can’t write in my apartment; I will do everything but write when I’m in my home. I need the white noise in the background to help me write, so my writing space is usually whatever coffee shop is in the area for me. In New York, this is harder to do since space is at such a premium, so part of the fun of traveling for me is discovering new writing spaces in the city I’m visiting. Seattle and Chicago, where I’ve been recently, have some beautiful coffee shops.