An Interview with Young Jean Lee

Extract

Identified by Time Out New York as “one of the best experimental playwrights in America” and hailed by the New York Times as “the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation,” Young Jean Lee (Fig. 1) is actively shaping the future of the American theatre. In 2003, she founded Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, through which she has written and directed ten productions. Her full-length plays, including The Shipment and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, have been published in four collections and performed worldwide. In 2013, she released her first short film, Here Come the Girls, and her debut album, We're Gonna Die. In the following interview, Young Jean Lee reflects on the role of humor in her plays, discusses her collaborative process, and reveals the two rules that she would never break in the theatre.