A RARE BIRD

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2024
7PM at Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater

written and directed by Zaza Diana Oh (they/them)

Intimacy Director: Alex Might (she/her)
Stage Manager: Ariana Swei (they/them)
Sound Designer: Christopher Darbassie
Assistant Director/Acting Coach: Michi Zaya (any pronouns)
Assistant Director/Movement Coach: Shannon Yu 余香儒 (sha/shas)

featuring Akane Little (they/them), Mei Ann Teo (they/them) & Zaza Diana Oh (they/them)

Unboxable Artist, Sonic Ritualist, and Actor Zaza Diana Oh’s (they/them) A Rare Bird is pulled from THE DESIRE ARCHIVES, Oh's year-long personal study on epigenetics, desire, and the brain. A Rare Bird is an interdisciplinary choreo-play, Live Physical Intimacy, and Quiet and Honest Sex Show, as it captures Skye and Gabriel’s date on the carpeted floor against the couch of a studio apartment where neither is willing or able to make the first move. A Rare Bird blends, defies, and subverts Erotic Thriller Cinema, Narrative Play, Stage Sex Show, and finally the Quiet and Slow Sex Education so many of us long for. While seeking Refuge in Ceremony, this is an ode to Introversion, (loud) pauses, and letting less be.

**Zaza Diana Oh** (they/them)

**Writer, Director, and Performer**
Zaza Diana Oh (they/them) is an Interdisciplinary Writer, Performer, Actor, Singer/Songwriter, Sonic Ritualist, DJ, and Creator of {my lingerie play} (10 underground performance installations in my lingerie, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, TOW Fellow, Venturous Capital Fellow, NY Times Critics Pick), Infinite Love Party (An Intentional Barefoot Potluck, Dance Party, and Sleepover for QTBiPOC & Their Allies, Bushwick Starr, NY Times Critics Pick), CLAIRVOYANCE (A Concert, Installation & Tree Planting Series celebrating Queer Magic, A.R.T.), OH FAMILY CONCERT (Documentary avail on All Arts TV & PBS), The Gift Project (Film & Concert series celebrating Elders of Marginalized Experience, Symphony Space, All-For-One), My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (Various, The Public EWG), Depression Box (upcoming), The Dope North Star Workshop, Art Chxrch (an underground binaural beat brain massage & somatic dance party for creatives and introverts). Oh is the Recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwright Award, Susan Steinberg Playwright Award, United States Artists Fellowship for Theatre, Sundance Institute Fellowship, Van Lier Fellowship in Acting, A.R.T. Artist in Community Residency. Oh is a 2018 Williamstown Theatre Festival Playwright-in-Residence and is a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ+ Influencer.

**Alex Might** (she/her)

**Intimacy Director**
Broadway: POTUS. Select Off-Broadway and Regional: How to Defend Yourself (NYTW), In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot (Playwrights Horizons), RENT (Paper Mill Playhouse), The Wolves (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Fight Call (Breaking the Binary), backstroke boys (Fault Line), TWITCH (Williamstown), The Scarlet Letter (Two River). www.alexmight.com

Ariana Swei (they/them)

Stage Manager

Ariana Swei is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and arts worker based in Brooklyn. They work as the Education and Community Programs Coordinator at Ping Chong and Company, teach at various silly arts institutions across the city, and continue to sit in rehearsal rooms with people for extended periods of time in an attempt to create something good. Ariana holds a BA in Studio Art and English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis.

**Christopher Darbassie**

**Sound Designer**
(Select Credits): *The Counter* (Roundabout)*, Almost There* (Audible @ Minetta Lane), *Table 17* (MCC)*, Six Characters* (LCT3)*, Apiary, Camp Siegfried* (2nd Stage) Antiquities, *Amusements (*Playwrights Horizons), *Grangeville*, *A Bright New Boise, A Case for the Existence of God* (Signature Theater), *Uncle Vanya* (O’Henry Productions), *This Beautiful Future (Cherry Lane Theater), Fly Away (Petzel Gallery)*, *Black Exhibition* (The Bushwick Starr). Chris has designed for art installations, radio plays, and devised works in collaboration with The National Black Theater, The Public, Ars Nova, and more. *www.darbassiedesign.com* | Free Palestine | Free Congo

Michi Zaya (any pronouns)

Assistant Director/Acting Coach

Michi Zaya (any pronoun) is a Mongolian storyteller of all trades, based in Brooklyn. Michi’s work can be seen on stage as a performer/actor, projections designer, and director. Her primary interests are in experimentally bold and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable presentations of art. Recent and upcoming collaborations include: The Public Theater and Brooklyn College, CHUANG Stage (Boston), Columbia University, The New School, Hunter College, NYU Tisch, and many wonderful artists in her community of LQBTQ+, immigrant or international, and brave humans. Michi has a precious black cat named Hobie, he is Michi’s whole world. Website: michizaya.com

Shannon Yu 余香儒 (sha/shas)

Assistant Director/Movement Coach

Shannon Yu 余香儒(sha/shas) is a Brooklyn, New York based artist from Taiwan. Sha holds an MFA in Performance and Performance Studies from Pratt Institute. Shannon identifies as a dancer-choreographer and queer-creator. Shannon practices Breaking, Hip Hop, Contemporary floorwork, and Wing Tsun Martial Arts. Shannon is the founder and Artistic Director of multimedia dance company SHA Creative Outlet. Shannon has shown work in Judson Memorial Church, Arts On Site, Triskelion Arts, Abrons Arts Center, The Landmark Loew's Theater, and the Center at West Park. Shannon was named 2023 Asian American Arts Alliance’s Jadin Wong Fellow for Dance, and 2024 BanDung residency fellow.

**Akane Little** (they/them)

**GABRIEL**
Akane is a movement & body-based artist entering performance as an altar for channeling new worlds. They started off in competition dance in a small-town studio in Mississippi, and have since studied under Alysia Ramos at Oberlin College, and freelanced in both Cleveland, OH and New York. Their favorite recent collaborations have been with God Complex x Aeon Andreas and LEIMAY. They currently train and perform with LEIMAY under the direction of Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya.

**Mei Ann Teo** (they/them)

**VOICE**
Mei Ann Teo (they/them) is a theatre maker working at the intersection of artistic/civic/contemplative practice towards investigations of liveness and revelation. They direct nationally including the Public Theater, OSF, 2nd Stage, Goodman Theatre, the National Black Theatre, and internationally at Belgium's Festival de Liege, Beijing International Festival, and others. They don’t usually perform, but for Diana “Zaza” Oh they do. Previous collaborations with Zaza include Dramaturg on My Lingerie Play at Rattlestick, Love Doctor & the role that sang/twerked/collected$$ with a bucket in Clairvoyance at American Repertory Theatre. They are an artistic leader at Ping Chong and Company.

2024 FESTIVAL STAFF

Co-Sound Designer: Bailey Trierweiler (he/him)
Literary Manager: Bryar Barborka (they/them)
Casting Director: Charlie Hano, CSA (he/him)
Co-Sound Designer: Christopher Darbassie
Associate Producer: Esmé Maria Ng (they/she/he)
Assistant Producer: Flower Estefana Rios
Founding Artistic Director: George Strus (they/them)
Graphic Designer: Marc Ella Roy (they/them)