Delightful! A tour de force!.
— Mercury News
Downright funny, funny, FUNNY.
— Talkin' Broadway
Comic piquancy. Gems!
— San Francisco Chronicle
Tiger Style!
April 6 – 28, 2024
By MIKE LEW
Directed by JEFFREY LO
Ivy-League graduates and squabbling siblings Albert and Jennifer Chen spent their whole childhoods totally crushing it. But adulthood? Epic fail. After he’s passed over for a promotion and her loser boyfriend ghosts her, they do what any self-respecting thirtysomethings would do: Blame their parents and run away to China. Problem solved…right? (Spoiler alert: Wrong. So, so wrong.) From SoCal to Shenzhen, Mike Lew’s hilarious new satire is a claws-out look at the triumphs and traumas of tiger parenting and what it takes to make it out the other side alive.
Special Events and Accessible Performances
- Wednesday, April 10, 2024 @ 7:30pm
- Wednesday, April 24, 2024 @ 7:30pm
- Saturday, April 27, 2024 @ 8pm
- Sunday, April 28, 2024 @ 2pm
- Sunday, April 21, 2024 @ 2pm
- Sunday, April 21, 2024 @ 7pm
- Wednesday, April 24, 2024 @ 2pm
- Tuesday, April 16, 2024 @ 7:30pm
- Friday, April 12, 2024 @ 8pm
- Saturday, April 13, 2024 @ 2pm
- Sunday, April 21, 2024 @ 2pm
Cast
WILL DAO
ALBERT CHEN: has recently appeared in Poor Yella Rednecks: Vietgone 2 at ACT and My Home on the Moon at SF Playhouse. Additional credits include Vietgone (Oregon Shakespeare Festival/ Seattle Repertory Theatre/ L.A. Theatreworks); Final Boarding Call (Ma-Yi Theater Company/WP Theater/Playwrights Foundation/ Powerhouse Theater); The Chinese Lady (Magic Theatre/Denver Center for the Performing Arts); The Hundred Flowers Project (Crowded Fire Theater); The Crazed (Central Works); Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Bay Area Children’s Theatre); Language Rooms (Golden Thread Productions/Asian American Theater Company); Antony and Cleopatra, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, The Winter’s Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare in Love, Snow in Midsummer (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). Learn more at www.willdao.com and on Instagram @thewilldao. ILYM, MGS & Nova.
FRANCIS JUE
TZI CHUAN, MELVIN, DAD, GENERAL TSO: has worked on 15 previous TheatreWorks productions, most recently The Language Archive (Bay Area Critics Circle Award). Broadway: Pacific Overtures, Thoroughly Modern Millie, M. Butterfly, and the upcoming Yellow Face. Recent theatre credits include Babbitt (La Jolla Playhouse), Cambodian Rock Band (Signature Theatre, Lucille Lortel Award), Soft Power (Public Theater, Outer Critics Circle Award), Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 (American Repertory Theatre). TV/Film: “Madam Secretary,” “Hightown,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “White Noise”, “Our Son”, “Joyful Noise”.
JEREMY KAHN
RUSS THE BUSS, REGGIE, CUSTOMS GUY: returns to TheatreWorks where he previously appeared in Archduke and Peter and the Starcatcher. Other theater credits include: Gloria, A Christmas Carol (A.C.T.), Office Hour (Berkeley Rep & Long Wharf), peerless (Marin Theatre Co.), Tortilla Curtain (San Diego Rep), Wittenberg, Dry Powder, Everything is Illuminated (Aurora Theatre Co.), The Liar, Baskerville, It Shoulda Been You (Center Rep), Another Way Home (Magic Theatre), The Song of Summer (San Francisco Playhouse), Bad Jews, The Hombres (Capital Stage), Red Velvet (Jewel Theatre Co.) and The Rover (Shotgun Players). Kahn’s on-camera work includes: “Looking” (HBO), “Unleashed,” “The Etruscan Smile” and “Dirt” as well as motion-capture performance on several releases of NBA2K. ActorJeremyKahn.com
JENNY NGUYEN NELSON
JENNIFER CHEN: (she/her) has performed with ACT in Poor Yella Rednecks: Vietgone 2, SF Playhouse in My Home on the Moon, and Cal Shakes in Everybody and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She is thrilled to make her Theatreworks debut. New York credits include Clubbed Thumb and Ars Nova ANT Fest. Regional credits include Trinity Repertory Company and PCPA Pacific Conservatory Theatre. Workshop credits include ACT, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Center, Theatreworks, and The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep. jennynguyennelson.com IG @bratwurst_banhmi
EMILY KURODA
THERAPIST, MOM, COUSIN CHEN, MATCHMAKER: TheatreWorks (Language Archive, Calligraphy), Playwrights’ Arena (Calligraphy, Three, Straight as a Line), South Coast Rep (Tiger Style!, Fast Company, Our Town, Ballad of Yachiyo), New York Theatre Workshop (Endlings), Yale Rep (Today is My Birthday), Pan Asian (Brothers Paranormal), American Repertory Theater (Endlings), Page 73 (Today is My Birthday), Actors Theater of Louisville (we, the invisibles), Huntington Theater (Tiger Style!, WomanWarrior), Artists at Play (Two Mile Hollow), Alliance Theater (Tiger Style!), Sundance Theater Lab (Today is My Birthday, A Cage of Fireflies), East West Players (over 45 productions), Kirk Douglas, Mark Taper Forum, Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Singapore Repertory, Berkeley Repertory, The Doolittle, LATC, Zephyr, LAWomen’s Shakespeare Company, and the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival. Selected TV: “Gilmore Girls,” “Baymax,” “All Rise,” “The Good Doctor,” “The Resident,” “Drop Dead Diva,” “Sequestered,” and “The Power.” Recent Films: “Strange World,” “Kimi,” “Porcupine,” “Take the 10,” “Party Boat,” “Red,” “Yellow Face,” “Sensei” and the upcoming “Neighbors” with Ann Hathaway.
ALEXANDER TRONO
UNDERSTUDY: is thrilled to be making his TheatreWorks debut! He most recently appeared in Are You Goth Enough... (Awesome Theatre) and ROOTED: Stories of Belonging (Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company). He is also a teaching artist with Red Ladder Theatre Company and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Trono is a company member of Red Ladder Theatre Company and Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company.
VIVIENNE TRUONG
UNDERSTUDY: has performed with TheatreWorks at their New Works Festival in Christopher Chen’s The Motion. She recently understudied The Great Leap at Center Rep and was last seen in two farces: The Play That Goes Wrong at San Jose Stage Company and Noises Off at The Pear Theatre. Previous credits include: Tea Party (One of Our Own Theatre), Red Bike (Center Rep), and Vietgone (City Lights Theatre Company). After earning her BA in Theatre Arts from San Jose State University, she now works at Red Ladder Theatre Company, a social justice theatre company that works with under-served communities to nurture creativity and change through improvisational workshops. She is now trying her hand as Casting Director for More Más Marami.
WILLIAM A. WILLIAMS
CARY: A California native, William A. Williams is a musician/actor now based out of New York City. Seattle Repertory Theatre: Lizard Boy (Cary), Of Mice and Men (Whit). Balagan Theater: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Dr. Horrible). Contemporary Classics: …Spelling Bee (Leaf Coneybear), Zanna, Don’t! (Steve, Arvin) Village Theatre: Beauty and the Beast, Showboat, The Gypsy King. Seattle Shakespeare Company: Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors. William played guitar in productions of Spring Awakening (Balagan), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (ArtsWest) and took on the bass guitar for The Iceman Lab at Target Margin in NYC. He can often be spotted rummaging through endless crates of vinyl records, singing standards in dingy bars, or producing funky tracks in his humble home studio. William received a B.F.A. from Cornish College of the Arts.
WILLIAM A. WILLIAMS
CARY: A California native, William A. Williams is a musician/actor now based out of New York City. Seattle Repertory Theatre: Lizard Boy (Cary), Of Mice and Men (Whit). Balagan Theater: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Dr. Horrible). Contemporary Classics: …Spelling Bee (Leaf Coneybear), Zanna, Don’t! (Steve, Arvin) Village Theatre: Beauty and the Beast, Showboat, The Gypsy King. Seattle Shakespeare Company: Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors. William played guitar in productions of Spring Awakening (Balagan), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (ArtsWest) and took on the bass guitar for The Iceman Lab at Target Margin in NYC. He can often be spotted rummaging through endless crates of vinyl records, singing standards in dingy bars, or producing funky tracks in his humble home studio. William received a B.F.A. from Cornish College of the Arts.
CREATIVE TEAM
MIKE LEW
PLAYWRIGHT: Plays include Teenage Dick (Donmar Warehouse, Wooly Mammoth, Ma-Yi at the Public, and Artists Rep productions; Public Studio, O’Neill, OSF workshops), Tiger Style! (Olney, Huntington, La Jolla Playhouse, and Alliance productions; O’Neill and CTG workshops), Bike America (Ma-Yi and Alliance productions), microcrisis (Ma-Yi, InterAct, and Next Act productions), Moustache Guys, and the book to the musical Bhangin’ It (Richard Rodgers Award; La Jolla Playhouse, Jerome Robbins Project Springboard and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat “Triple R” workshops). He is a Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Ma-Yi and former La Jolla Playhouse Artist-in-Residence (both with Rehana Lew Mirza). Honors include Lark Venturous and NYFA fellowships and the Kleban, PEN Emerging Playwright, Lanford Wilson, Helen Merrill, Heideman, and Kendeda awards. He is former co-director of Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the largest collective of Asian-American playwrights in the country.
JEFFREY LO
DIRECTOR: (he/him) is TheatreWorks’ Associate Producer of Casting and Literary Management, and has previously directed TheatreWorks’ productions of Little Shop of Horrors, The Language Archive and The Santaland Diaries. A Filipino-American director and playwright, his additional directing credits include Vietgone and The Great Leap at Capital Stage, Chinglish, The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin and Hold These Truths at San Francisco Playhouse, as well as Bald Sisters and Between Riverside and Crazy at San Jose Stage Company. He is the recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Award, the Arts Council Silicon Valley Emerging Artist Laureate, and Theatre Bay Area Director’s TITAN Award. In addition to his work on stage, Mr. Lo does work nationally promoting equity, diversity, inclusion, and access in the arts. JeffreyWritesAPlay.com
ARNEL SANCIANCO
SCENIC DESIGN: Arnel is excited to make his TheatreWorks and Bay Area Debut with Tiger Style! Arnel is an award-winning set designer with a nationally recognized portfolio. He’s currently a Lecturer of scenic design at UC Berkeley. Credits include Dreamgirls (McCarter & Goodspeed) The Nacirema Society, Lottery Day (Goodman Theatre), Rent, The Color Purple (The Muny), Rent, Once on This Island (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), The Mortification of Fovea Munson, Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie (Kennedy Center), Ain’t No Mo (Woolly Mammoth), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (The Huntington), Put Your House in Order (La Jolla Playhouse), Choir Boy, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, We Are Proud to Present, (Steppenwolf). www.ArnelDesigns.com Instagram: @ArnelDesigns
BECKY BODURTHA
COSTUME DESIGN: is thrilled to join TheatreWorks for the first time on Tiger Style! Recent credits include Bald Sisters (San Jose Stage), Drowning in Cairo (Potrero Stage), Felix Starro (Theatre Ma-Yi), and Open (The Tank). Other credits: Constellations (Wilma), The Strangest (East 4th Street), Among the Dead (Theatre Ma-Yi) Passover (Cherry Lane), The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra, Go! (Theatre Ma-Yi), Livin’ La Vida Imelda (Theatre Ma-Yi), and This Lingering Life (HERE Arts). International credits include Betrayal, Anna in the Tropics (Repertory Philippines), Movement for Humanity and Africa’s Hope for the Ubumuntu Festival in Kigali, Rwanda. Alongside her professional design work, she teaches design at Stanford University. www.beckybodurtha.com
KURT LANDISMAN
LIGHTING DESIGN: is pleased to return to TheatreWorks, and collaborate with Director Jeffrey Lo on this production of Tiger Style!. Previously he designed lighting for In Every Generation, The Joy Luck Club, Once On This Island, and The Heidi Chronicles which received the BATCC Award for Best Lighting Design. His designs have been seen throughout the Bay Area, represented at ACT, San Jose Rep, San Francisco Opera, Berkeley Rep, Marin Theatre Co, Center Rep, Magic Theatre, and many others. His 45 years of lighting design include the premieres of Sam Shepard’s True West as well as Fool for Love which played Off-Broadway for 2 years. His lighting has been seen throughout the US, as well as internationally with productions in Tokyo, Singapore, and Shanghai. His designs have received 22 Bay Area Critics Circle Awards.
HOWARD HO
SOUND DESIGN, LANGUAGE CONSULTANT: is a playwright, composer and sound designer. Previously at TheatreWorks, he was the sound designer on The Santaland Diaries. Other Bay Area credits include My Home on the Moon (SF Playhouse), The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (SF Playhouse, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle nomination), and The Crucible (Los Altos Stage). Ho has also worked with Center Theatre Group, East West Players, Deaf West, Perseverance Theatre, Playwrights’ Arena, and Company of Angels among others. His play Reset was produced at Moving Arts in 2023 and was an O’Neill finalist and a Bay Area Playwrights Semifinalist. His Youtube channel (youtube.com/HowardHoMusic) dissecting musicals has over 120,000 subscribers and was recognized by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
HEATHER STERLING
WIG DESIGN: has been designing wigs and makeup for theatrical productions for over 20 years. Recent designs include In Every Generation and Nan and the Lower Body with TheatreWorks of Silicon Valley, Il Trovatore, Carmen, and The Valkyrie for Opera Santa Barbara; Proving Up, Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, and Zanetto/Gianni Schicchi for San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Romeo and Juliet and The Marriage of Figaro for Opera San José. Upcoming productions are Zorro at Opera Santa Barbara and Opera Scenes at SFCM. She is also a theatrical makeup educator at SFCM and assistant director at Studio 10 Dance in San Jose.
TAYLOR MCQUESTEN
STAGE MANAGER: (she/her) works internationally as a stage and tour manager, electrician, and stuntwoman. Select credits include ten seasons at Tony Award-winning TheatreWorks Silicon Valley (Resident Stage Manager), Production Stage Manager for Lizard Boy, Tour Manager for Evan Rachel Wood and Zane Carney’s band EVAN+ZANE, SF Sketchfest (Assistant Technical Director), California Shakespeare Theater (Production Electrician), Presidio Theatre (Interim Company Manager), Legion A/V (Head of Lighting), Playfaire Productions (Swordswoman), The Independent SF (Lighting Designer), Highlander Films (Production Assistant), American Conservatory Theater, Center REP, Cabrillo Stage, Hillbarn Theatre, and Magic Theatre. She also trains historic mêlée weapons at Davenriche European Martial Arts School under master swordsman, Sir Steáphen Fick.
LAURA HICKS
(ASSITANT STAGE MANAGER) Originally from Alabama and now in the Bay Area, she has been a Stage Manager for TheatreWorks New Works Festival, Aurora Theatre’s 1984, and ASM for TheatreWorks' Steel Magnolias. She was the Resident Stage Manager with Red Mountain Theatre in Birmingham for several years, where she was the stage manager for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Holiday Spectacular, and their Performing Ensemble program. Additional Stage Manager credits include You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Virginia Repertory Theatre), 1776 (Virginia Repertory Theatre), The Velveteen Rabbit (Virginia Repertory Theatre), Glory Denied (Opera Birmingham), and The Tragedy of Carmen (Opera Birmingham). Assistant Stage Manager credits include Dreamgirls (Virginia Repertory Theatre), Dreamgirls (Red Mountain Theatre), Elixir of Love (Opera Birmingham), Fiddler on the Roof (Red Mountain Theatre), Beauty and the Beast (Red Mountain Theatre), and The Nutcracker (Alabama Ballet).