#Kaya Press est. 1994
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kaya publishes books of the asian pacific diaspora

 
 

#samchanse

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Sam Chanse

Sam Chanse is a writer and theater artist based in New York and California. A 2015 Sundance Ucross Playwright Fellow and member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, her work has also been supported by the Lark Play Development Center, Labyrinth Theater, Leviathan Lab, the Actor’s Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit, Second Generation, Ars Nova, Bindlestiff Studio, Asian American Theater Company, Tofte Lake Center, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Her plays, musicals, and theater work include Fruiting Bodies, Gilgamesh & the Mosquito (with composer Bob Kelly), Lobsters Live Forever (also with Bob Kelly), Marian Jean, About That Whole Dying Thing, Back to the Graveyard, and Lydia’s Funeral Video. She received her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University, and in musical theater writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. For some years in the aughts, she served as the artistic director of San Francisco-based arts nonprofit Kearny Street Workshop, and as co-director of Locus Arts. A former & proud member of bantercut, she is also a fan of the biocoastal salon sensation that is Laundry Party.

#samchanse

books

Lydia’s Funeral Video

Kaya Press 2015
Lydia’s Funeral Video is a one-woman play written and performed by Sam Chanse, a playwright and performer based in New York and California. In this apocalyptic satire, devout bank clerk Lydia Clark-Lin has 28 days to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, shoot her own funeral video and do some standup comedy. As the camera rolls and Lydia gamely sets about her grim task, what seems like paranoia blossoms into a deeper understanding of herself that is at once comic and heartbreakingly prescient. This publication unites the full theater script of Lydia’s Funeral Video with a new counterpoint narrative and stream-of-consciousness illustrations that enhance this dynamic realization of a live theater experience in book form. Also included are notes and an essay about the origins and development of the piece, as well as a special mini-flipbook. Seamlessly weaving in questions of race, gender identity and more existential questions, Lydia’s Funeral Video is bold, unpredictable storytelling at its inventive and unsettling best.
 
praise

“Spiked with surreal celebrity trash-culture references, sardonic moral relativity, and Samantha Chanse’s biting wit, Lydia’s Funeral Video celebrates irreverent political incorrectness and the societal gray areas in all of us.” — Flavorpill San Francisco

Sam Chanse news

Jenny Liou and Sam Chanse at Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth

Saturday, October 22 | 3 – 4:30 PM | Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth, 917 E 3rd St, Los Angeles | Free! Register HERE. Visit Hauser & Wirth in the Los Angeles Arts District, for a Muscle Memory book signing with Jenny Liou and Kaya playwright Sam Chanse. Preorder SIGNED copies here! Sam Chanse is a […]

Kaya Press at AWP

AWP is an annual literary conference that brings together over 12,000 writers and publishers from all over the country. Come visit us at Booth 1310! Kaya Press and Tia Chucha Press are sharing a space (which will also feature work by Tiny Splendor, and Dum Dum Zine). And here is a roundup of Kaya’s smoking hot literary […]

Literaoke

Come out and get down with Kaya Press & Kundiman at our AWP offsite event as we combine readings and Karaoke into a never-before-attempted experiment of entertainment and enlightenment! The event will feature the literary (& musical) stylings of Vidhu Aggarwal, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Sam Chanse, Leticia Hernandez, Ashaki M. Jackson, Janine Joseph, Teka Lark, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Ed Lin, R. Zamora Linmark, Kenji Liu, Rajiv Mohabir, Angela […]

Lydia’s Funeral Video LA Launch: Avenue 50 Studio

Monday Jan. 25, 2015 | 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Avenue 50 Studio | 131 North Avenue 50 Highland Park CA 90042 Come out to Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park to celebrate Sam Chanse’s satirical one-woman play, Lydia’s Funeral Video: set in a near distant future, devout bank clerk Lydia Clark-Lin has 28 days to terminate an […]