LAFPI

DRAGON MAMA
Part II of The Dragon Cycle
Written & Performed by Sara Porkalob
Directed by Andrew Russell

On the eve of her 60th birthday, Maria Porkalob Sr. fires up her new karaoke machine to regale her granddaughter Sara with her astonishing life story. As a lounge singer who escaped a gangster-controlled nightclub in Manila to become a free-range mother of five in the United States, Maria is a matriarch not to be trifled with. Broadway star and storyteller Sara Porkalob embodies dozens of characters in a trigenerational tour-de-force performance that fuses killer karaoke with laugh-out-loud comedy to tell her family’s incredible origin story.

Previews: March 4, 2026 – March 11, 2026

March 12 – April 12, 2026

Wednesday, Thursday 7:30 p.m.
Friday 8:00 p.m.
Saturday 3:00 and 8:00 p.m.
Sunday 2:00 p.m

Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse

Sara Porkalob (Playwright & Performer)

Sara Porkalob is so excited to be back at the Geffen Playhouse! She is a writer, cultural worker, and creator behind The Dragon Cycle, a trilogy of matrilineal musicals about her Filipina-American gangster family; one play for each generation built around a central female protagonist. The first in the cycle, Dragon Lady, premiered at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre in 2017, with awards including three 2018 Gregory Awards for Outstanding Sound/Music Design, Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and Outstanding Musical Production, and a 2023 San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Choice for Solo Performance. The second in the cycle, Dragon Mama, premiered at American Repertory Theatre in 2019, with awards including two Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding New Script and Outstanding Solo Performance, and the 2023 Craig Noel’s Outstanding Lead Performance in San Diego. The final play, Dragon Baby, is currently under a Geffen Playhouse finishing commission. She is a 2021 recipient of the Princess Grace Award for Theater. Broadway: “Edward Rutledge” in 1776. She’s also a Creative Consultant with the City of Seattle and their Creative Strategies Initiative (CSI), a new city effort that uses arts- and culture-based approaches to build racial and gender equity in non-arts policy areas like the environment, housing, workforce, and community development. She is currently writing her first feature film and hopes to adapt The Dragon Cycle for television one day. Socials: @sporkalob, www.saraporkalob.com