Alice Tuan is an
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
playwright, teacher and performer.
Education
Tuan earned a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
from
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
.
In 1997, she earned a
MFA in
creative writing
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...
from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
.
Awards
In the year 2000, Los Angeles’
Mark Taper Forum
The Mark Taper Forum is a 739-seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center designed by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of Downtown Los Angeles. Named for real estate developer Mark Taper, the Forum, the neighboring ...
honored her with the Richard E. Sherwood Award in June, while New York's Downtown Arts Project awarded her the Colbert Award for Excellence that fall. She was also given a New Voices Playwriting Award from
East West Players
East West Players is an Asian American theatre organization in Los Angeles, founded in 1965. As the nation's first professional Asian American theatre organization, East West Players continues to produce works and educational programs that give v ...
.
Two years prior, Tuan was endowed with the
NEA/
TCG Residency Program for Playwrights through Los Angeles’ East West Players (1998–2000) while also given a Playwright in Residence grant at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (1998–1999).
Upon graduating from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
with an MFA in creative writing in 1997, Tuan was the winner of the Perishable Theater 5th Annual Woman's Playwriting Festival. She was also awarded the
Drama-Logue Award
The Drama-Logue Award was an American theater award established in 1977, given by the publishers of Drama-Logue newspaper, a weekly west-coast theater trade publication. Winners were selected by the publication's theater critics, and would recei ...
for Best Play that year for scribing ''Ikebana''.
Plays
The best known of these plays, ''Ajax (por nobody)'', had a year run at New York's Flea Theater and traveled to the
Melbourne Fringe Festival
The Melbourne Fringe Festival is an annual independent arts festival in Melbourne, Australia, usually over three weeks from late September to early October. Held since 1982, the Festival includes a wide variety of art forms, including theatre, com ...
in September 2001.
''Last of the Suns'', her first play, tells of a Chinese Nationalist army general shriveling away under the harsh California sun as his failed and defecting ice-skating granddaughter comes to visit him on his 100th birthday. It premiered at
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It runs seven productions each season from its two stages in Downtown Berkeley.
History
The company was founded in 1968, as the East Bay's first resident pr ...
and was later produced by New York's
Ma-Yi Theater Company Ma-Yi Theater Company is a professional, not-for-profit, Obie Award and Drama Desk Award-winning theater company based in New York City that was founded in 1989. Ma-Yi Theater is headed by executive director Jorge Ortoll and artistic director Ra ...
.
More recent works include the Virtual Hypertext Play ''Coastline'',
which traveled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2005, and ''BATCH: An American Bachelor/ette Party Spectacle,' ''directed by Whit MacLaughlin and in collaboration with New Paradise Laboratories.
Teaching
Tuan has facilitated playwright workshops at all levels throughout the United States. She taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
References
Colbert Award for Excellence
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuan, Alice
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
American dramatists and playwrights of Asian descent