LAFPI

caryn desai directs the Los Angeles premiere of Cardboard Piano by Whiting Award-winning playwright Hansol Jung. Cardboard Piano opens May 4 at International City Theatre in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, with two low-priced previews set for May 2 and May 3.

Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., May 4 through May 20

A secret wedding ceremony between the daughter of an American missionary and a local teenage girl is disrupted by violence when a child soldier fleeing the atrocities of war stumbles into their remote Ugandan church.  Set against the backdrop of the 21-year-long civil war in northern Uganda, Jung’s haunting drama confronts the religious and cultural roots of intolerance, as well as the human capacity for hatred, forgiveness and love.

“Religion can do two opposite things,” the South Korean playwright said in an interview. “It can destroy, hurt, and be an instigator of violence, but it can also be the only thing capable of controlling that violence.”

According to the Whiting Foundation, which last week awarded Jung with the 2018 Whiting Award for Drama, “The stories playwright Hansol Jung is committed to telling could not be more essential to this moment. She knits together the agonies of Korean history, the restless excitement and anxiety of the tech age, and the shapes of loss and longing.” Jung’s other plays include Among the Dead (Ma-Yi Theatre Company), No More Sad Things (co-world premiere at Sideshow Theatre and Boise Contemporary Theatre), Wolf Play and Wild Goose Dreams.

The ICT production stars Dashawn “Dash” Barnes (The Legend of Georgia McBride at the Geffen), Allison Blaize (Stupid Kid at the Road), Demetrius Hodges (The Wiz at Coterie Theatre in Kansas City) and JoJo Nwoko (Tarell in Season 4 of Showtime’s The Affair).

More info: InternationalCityTheatre.org

www.facebook.com/ICTLongBeach/
twitter: @ICTLongBeach and instagram: @ICT_LongBeach