St. Paul-based playwright and performance artist May Lee-Yang is at it again. This time, she is presenting Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman at the Minnesota Fringe Festival with performances taking place at the University of Minnesota west bank in the Xperimental Theater on 330 – 21st Avenue S., Minneapolis.
Confessions is a theater piece that explores the Rules of Being a Good Hmong Girl, how to balance being a feminist and dating Hmong men, and lessons learned from the not-so-lazy Hmong women in her life.
“I wrote this piece,” said Lee-Yang, “Because people kept telling me lazy, Hmong women do not exist. That I don’t exist. But I assure you, I am breathing.”
To help breathe life into her show, Lee-Yang is performing with actress Phasoua Vang under the direction of Robert Farid Karimi.
Confessions was originally commissioned by Out North Theater and Kaotic Good Productions through funding from the National Performance Network. It premiered in May 2010 in Anchorage, Alaska and is available to Minnesota audiences this August through the Minnesota Fringe Festival, an 11-day arts extravaganza whose mission is to connect adventurous artists with adventurous audience members.
Audiences can also see Lee-Yang’s work in another Fringe show, The EWOCs Do It In Ten Minutes. The EWOCs – Emerging Writers of Color – refers to The Unit, a collective of playwrights of color in the Twin Cities. Lee-Yang is a co-founding member and her short play, “Comfort Food” will be featured along with eight others. “Comfort Food” is about a mother and daughter who bicker over boiled chicken, each other, and the things that cannot be spoken.
Show dates for Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman are August 7 at 7:00 p.m., August 8 at 1:00 p.m., August 11 at 10:00 p.m. , August 12 at 5:30 p.m., and August 14 at 8:30 p.m.
Ticket prices are $12 each plus attendees are expected to purchase a $4 Minnesota Fringe Festival button. For more information on the Minnesota Fringe Festival, go to www.fringefestival.org. For more information on May Lee-Yang’s work, go to www.lazyhmongwoman.com. ο
