121 Project

CHRISTINE TOY JOHNSON (book and lyrics) is a Tony and Obie honored, Rosetta LeNoire, JACL, Actors’ Equity Foundation, and Asian American Arts Alliance award winning writer, actor, and advocate for inclusion. Her written work has been produced and/or developed by the Roundabout, Lortel Theatre, Village Theatre, O’Neill Center, the Abingdon, Greater Boston Stage Company, Florida Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, Barrow Group, Prospect Theatre, Weston Playhouse, Musical Theatre West, Goodspeed Opera House, and more, and is included in the Library of Congress’s Asian Pacific American Playwrights Collection. Published by NoPassport Press, Smith & Kraus, Rowman & Littlefield, Applause Books. Treasurer of the Dramatists Guild and host of the Guild’s podcast “Talkback” on Broadway Podcast Network. BMI, Writers Lab, Sarah Lawrence College alum, co-founder of AAPAC (Asian American Performers Action Coalition), founder of the Asian American Theatre Artists Collective. As an actor, Christine has appeared extensively on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in regional theatres across the country and on television and film. Details: www.christinetoyjohnson.com

CECILIA LIN (composer), a graduate of Royal College of Music (London), is a four-time China Music Award winner for Best Composer of the Year. Beginning her professional career at age 15, Ms. Lin has written over a hundred pieces of pop music for various Asian pop stars, including JJ Lin, A-Mei, Gigi Leung, Kelly Chan, Twins, Eason Chan,etc. and twenty-one songs that reached #1 on Chinese Music Radio (Chinese Billboard). Ms. Lin also has a selection of film and TV credits, including composing additional material for Disney’s High School Musical (Asia).  In 2015, Ms. Lin signed on with the Paris National Symphony Orchestra as its first Asian composer and is the youngest artist ever to be on the national stamp issued by the CHINA POST.  Since 2018, Cecilia has been living in New York pursuing a career ( as a composer and a producer) in the Broadway theatre industry, earning multiple awards as a co-producer, including the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical (Desperate Measures). https://www.cecilialin.com

GELING YAN (Novelist/source material) is one of the most acclaimed contemporary novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today and a well-established writer in English. Her best-known novels in English are Little Aunt Crane published in the UK by Random House affiliate Harvill Secker; The Flowers of War, published in the U.S. by The Other Press and elsewhere by Random House’s Harvill Secker; The Banquet Bug (The Uninvited in its UK edition – written directly in English); and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories, translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books. Several of Geling Yan’s works have been adapted for film and television, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; produced by Ang Lee. Chinese director Zhang Yimou (To Live, Raise the Red Lantern) made The Flowers of War, a big-budget film based on her work set during the 1937 Rape of Nanking, starring Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale, and Coming Home (aka Return), based on her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi.

GABRIEL BARRE (Director) directed and co-authored the original production of Here You Come Again which toured the US, the UK and currently touring Australia.  He is an internationally acclaimed director who directed Amazing Grace on Broadway.   Off Broadway credits include the original productions of A Sign of the Times, The Wild Party (by Andrew Lippa), Summer of ’42, john & jen and Almost, Maine.  National Tours include Amazing Grace, Pippin and Cinderella.  US Regional theater credits include the original productions of Memphis in Boston and San Fransisco, as well as revivals of Billy Elliot, Sweeney Todd, Finian’s Rainbow and many new musicals at Goodspeed Musicals in CT.  Among the many countries he has directed productions in are: China (recent production Sound of the Silk Road), Mexico (Mexican premiere of Billy Elliot), Japan (Japanese premiere of The Scarlet Pimpernel), Korea (world premiere of the new musical, Tears of Heaven) Germany, and numerous shows in the Czech Republic at the Karlin Theater, including the recent hit, Beetlejuice, as well as the long running, Carmen, Jesus Christ Superstar, Aida, and Holmes, The Legend.  Gabe is also busy preparing to direct the world premiere of the exciting new musical, Reunion, by Frank Wildhorn and Rinne Groff about the reunion of a fictitious rock band.  As an actor, Gabe has appeared often in television, film and stage and was nominated for a TONY award as Best Actor in a Musical.