I am a warrior, so that my son may be a shop keeper, so that his son may be a poet. ― John Quincy Adams
A Deal
By Zhu Yi | Directed by John Giampietro
The World Premiere - Nov 15 to Dec 10, 2017
Like many new upper-middle-class Chinese families, Mr. and Mrs. Li are proud to give their only daughter a life they could only dream of (an Ivy League degree in art and an apartment in Manhattan), until they realize she’s turning into a dangerous stranger.
A DEAL is a dark comedy that features a Chinese family’s home buying journey in New York in winter 2015, a time of increased real estate property ownership by overseas Chinese and a sharp decline in the value of the Chinese yuan against the US dollar. It reveals the ideological conflicts between the East and the West in contemporary society by tracking a little stream of the global cash flow.
This was the first Off-Broadway production for internationally known playwright Zhu Yi.
A DEAL went on to tour China in Mandarin in 2017.
STARRING:
"Interesting, innovative, thought-provoking"
“ A play that was crying to be written, its subject matter is now front and center.”
“ Intriguing, revelatory play…a must-see”
Theater Pizzazz
"Poignant…[shows] that it is not as much whether you let go of your country, but if your country lets go of you."
Dandra reviews it all
Zhu Yi (Playwright) is a New York-based playwright and screenwriter, born and raised in Shanghai, China. MFA in playwriting, Columbia University. She received the First Prize at 2015 World Sinophone Drama Competition, and Shanghai Drama Valley's 2015 Outstanding Playwright of the Year Award. She is a 2012-2013 Emerging Artist Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Youngblood alumni at Ensemble Studio Theatre, a member of Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and a member of the Royal Court Theatre's International Playwrights Programme. Stage plays: How Time Flies (National Theatre of China), You Never Touched the Dirt (Spirit of ‘47, Edinburgh International Festival, UK), Holy Crab! (Wellspring Theater, Taiwan; Círculo de Tiza, Mexico), Apene i Himalaya (Hålogaland Teater, Norway), I Am a Moon (Shanghai Grand Theater, China; Theater Emory, Atlanta, GA; FringeNYC; Edinburgh Festival Fringe, UK; 3LD Art and Technology Center, NYC), It Rained on Shakopee (The Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, Duluth, MN), Long Life (Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, China; People’s Art Theater, China), Long Distance Affair (Bienal Arte Joven Buenos Aires, Argentina; Edinburgh Festival Fringe, UK), Lifetime Fairytale (Riverside Theatre, NYC). Films: Apolitical Romance (Taipei Film Festival; Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival; New York Asian Film Festival; Udine Far East Film Festival, Italy; Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival), Scrape (Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival; Alcances Film Festival, Spain).zhuyizhuyi.com
John Giampietro (Director) is a Brooklyn based stage director of Opera and Theatre. Recent credits include La Feldeltà Premiata at The Juilliard School, The Turn of the Screw and Carousel at Chautauqua Institution Festival of Music. He is a frequent director with Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theater’s Obie-award-winning young writers group. At EST John directed the NY Times acclaimed production of Year of the Rooster by Olivia Dufault. Other opera and theatre productions seen at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Vermont Shakespeare Festival, Curtis Institute of Music, The Flea Theatre, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He has directed over 20 operas for the Chautauqua School of Music where he is the principal stage director. John is a faculty member in the Vocal Arts department at The Juilliard School. Writing includes new English dialogue versions of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Der Schauspieldirektor. Upcoming, a new English dialogue version of Nicolai’s opera The Merry Wives of Windsor for The Juilliard School, in 2018.
Rebecca Kane (Stage Manager), Jeana Caporelli (Assistant Stage Manager), Frank Oliva (Set Designer), John Salutz (Lighting and Sound Designer), Audrey Nauman (Costume Designer), Ryan Belock (Video Designer) and Kim Sharp (Technical Director)
Graphic Design: Sylvia Haber, Perpetuart. Photos by Ben Hider.
The play was developed as part of "New Text - New Stage II", an Ibsen International project for the development of new writing.