Desdemona Chiang is a Taiwan-born American theatre director, and co-artistic director of

Azeotrope An azeotrope () or a constant heating point mixture is a mixture of two or more liquids whose proportions cannot be altered or changed by simple distillation.Moore, Walter J. ''Physical Chemistry'', 3rd e Prentice-Hall 1962, pp. 140–142 This ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, WA. Her directing credits include the

Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Gut ...

Alley Theatre The Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning theatre company in Houston, Texas. It is the oldest professional theatre company in Texas and the third oldest resident theatre in the United States. Alley Theatre productions have played on Broadway at L ...

South Coast Repertory South Coast Repertory (SCR) is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California. Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson, is led by Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Direc ...

Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary pla ...

Seattle Repertory Theatre Seattle Repertory Theatre (familiarly known as "The Rep") is a major regional theatre located in Seattle, Washington, at the Seattle Center. It is a member of Theatre Puget SoundCalifornia Shakespeare Theater,

Playmakers Repertory Company PlayMakers Repertory Company is the professional theater company in residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. PlayMakers Repertory Company is the successor of the Carolina Playmakers and is named after the Historic Playmakers ...

, and

ACT Theatre ACT Theatre (originally A Contemporary Theatre) is a regional, non-profit theatre organization in Seattle, in the US state of Washington. Gregory A. Falls (1922–1997) founded ACT in 1965 and served as its first Artistic director; at the time ACT ...

. She directs in a variety of genres, including

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, new plays, and

musicals Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement ...

Early life

Chiang was born in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

, Taiwan, and immigrated to California in the United States when she was three years old. She attended the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

to study

pre-medicine Pre-medical (often referred to as pre-med) is an educational track that undergraduate students in the United States pursue prior to becoming medical students. It involves activities that prepare a student for medical school, such as pre-med course ...

. She became interested in the theatre after taking an introduction to acting class, and graduated with a double major in Biology and Theatre. In 2009, she earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre Directing at the

University of Washington School of Drama The School of Drama is an undergraduate and graduate theatre school in the Arts Division of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1940, the School of Drama offers a Bachelor's degree ...

Career

In 2010, Chiang co-founded

with her graduate school colleague Richard Nguyen Sloniker, to create theatre focused on stories about invisible and marginalized people. Their production, ''Sound'' by Don Nguyen, was a bilingual show performed in

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

and spoken English, and featured a mixed ensemble of

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an Audiology, audiological condition. In this context it ...

and hearing actors. Chiang co-directed with Seattle-based deaf actor

Howie Seago Howie Seago (born December 15, 1953) is an American actor and director. Early life, family and education Seago, who is deaf, was born in Tacoma, Washington. His father was hard of hearing, and that side of the family had a history of hearing loss ...

. Some of Chiang's productions include a re-imagined ''

The Winter's Tale ''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some criti ...

'' at the

set in

Dynastic China __NOTOC__ This is a timeline of Chinese history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in China and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of China. See also the list ...

and

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

America featuring an Asian American and multicultural cast, ''

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...

'' at California Shakespeare Theater where the forest of

Arden Arden may refer to: Places ;Australia *Arden, an area in North Melbourne, Victoria near the Arden Street Oval ;Canada * Arden, Ontario ;Denmark * Arden, Denmark, a town **Arden Municipality, a former municipality, including the town of Arden ; ...

is transformed into an urban jungle, and a modern-day setting of ''

The Crucible ''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as a ...

'' at

PlayMakers Repertory Company PlayMakers Repertory Company is the professional theater company in residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. PlayMakers Repertory Company is the successor of the Carolina Playmakers and is named after the Historic Playmakers ...

. She has also directed at numerous regional theatres across America, including the Alley Theatre in Houston, Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA. In 2016, Chiang received the

Vilcek Foundation The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions to the United States, and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences. The foundation's flagship programs include the Vilcek Foundation Prizes, which recognize and support immigra ...

's Award for Creative Promise in Theatre.

Awards and nominations

* 2011 and 2020 Drama League TV/Film Fellowships *2019 Princess Grace Award - ''Robert and Gloria Hausman Theater Honor'' *2016 Vilcek Award for Creative Promise in Theatre * 2016 Gregory Award for Outstanding Direction - ''Constellations'' * 2015 Gregory Award for Outstanding Direction - ''Measure for Measure'' * SDC Sir John Gielgud Fellowship in Classical Theatre * 2012 Gregory Award for Outstanding Direction - ''Jesus Hopped the A Train''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chiang, Desdemona Chinese-American culture in Seattle Women theatre directors American theatre directors of Chinese descent Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Washington School of Drama alumni UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni