Racist Actor
By Daniel York Loh
Directed by Lucy Jane Atkinson
Cast: Siu-see Hung and Daniel York Loh.
Digital reading premiere: October 16, 2023
(and on demand ten days after on Vimeo with registration).
About the play
‘I tried really hard to be an actor
I tried really hard to be a writer
Then I just talked about food and myself
But I was always an ‘actor’
This is my story
Asking again
Who can be an actor…’
Where representation is an industry
When activism is an act
Where grifters and graspers and chancers and chasers play snakes and ladders on the gravy train of social justice…
A fierce and dark satire on what’s fraught and fake in the frenzy of today’s media landscape.
About the Playwright
Daniel York Loh
As writer, theatre includes: The Fu Manchu Complex (Ovalhouse/Moongate); Forgotten 遗忘 (Moongate/New Earth/Arcola/Plymouth Theatre Royal), Invisible Harmony 无形的和谐 (Papergang/Chinese Arts Now/South Bank Centre), contributing writer to Freedom Hi 自由閪 (Papergang/Vault Festival), Edition 1 – Living Newspaper (Royal Court), No Time For Tears – part of We R Not Virus – also co-curator (Moongate/Omnibus Theatre), Silent Disco in the Sky (Northern Stage ‘Scroll’ season) every dollar is a soldier/with money you’re a dragon (Kakilang/Two Temple Place/Edinburgh Fringe Horizon Showcase, Winner – Arts Council Digital Culture Award, Storytelling), Asian Exclusion Act (also directed – for East 15 Acting School), Beat Poetry (Academy of Live and Recorded Arts). Daniel is featured in the best-selling award-winning essay collection The Good Immigrant. Short films include: Mercutio’s Dreaming: The Killing of A Chinese Actor (writer/codirector/composer), Night Lives (co-director/composer), Dream of Emerald Hill (writer), Hall of Mirrors (director) Winner: Best Drama Short-London Independent Film Awards, Finding Akira (director), For RADA: Laid (director) Winner: Best Sc-Fi (Cannes Shorts), Best Horror (Paris Short Film Festival) and GYM Memorable Mention: Kiez Berlin Film Festival, Best Women Empowerment Short Film – Golden Lion, Best Sports Short Film – Golden Lion, For LAMDA: The Room Next Door.
About the Director
Lucy Jane Atkinson
Lucy Jane Atkinson is an award-winning director and dramaturg who specializes in new writing. A graduate of LAMDA’s Post Graduate Director’s course, and a member of the National Theatre’s Directors course. In 2018 she was named as number 1 on The Stage’s Top Talents To Watch, which stated “her direction is acutely sensitive to the shifting energy of the writing. Evident but never overbearing.”
Selected credits as Director: Barriers (National Theatre), A Hundred Words For Snow (Trafalgar Studios, Winner: Offie Best Actress. Nominated: Offie Best Director, Best New Play), The Sleeping Sword (Watermill Theatre), Spy For Spy (Riverside Studios), Testament (ViaBrooklyn, New York, Winner: BroadwayWorld Best Director 2022), Meat (Theatre503), Girls & Boys (Crow’s Theatre, Toronto), A Great Big Wooly Mammoth Thawing From The Ice, I & You (Burning Coal, North Carolina), The Snow Queen (Brighton Open Air Theatre), Anguis, Phoenix, Joshua (& Me) (Edinburgh Fringe), Something Awful, Vespertilio, A Hundred Words For Snow, Cause, Secondbests, Testament (VAULT Festival), Oil And Matter (Bunker theatre), The Enchantment (HERE Arts Centre, New York). As Staff Director: Middle (National Theatre).