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Lee/Gendary Created and performed by Soomi Kim Written by Derek Nguyen Directed by Suzi Takahashi Music composed by Jen Shyu Lee/gendary will run at HERE Theater Tuesdays Wednesdays, Thursdays in October. Dates: 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 30 at 8pm on the Mainstage. 145 6th Avenue (between Spring and Broome, entrance on Dominick) www.here.org When Bruce Lee was born, his mother gave him a girl's name to disguise him from evil spirits. When actor/performing artist Soomi Kim learned this surprising fact, she felt destined to create a theatre performance inhabiting the incomparable martial arts superstar. Set in the inner landscape of Bruce Lee's mind the moment he died in 1973, Lee/gendary is a theatrical deconstruction of an icon; a spiritual and psychological examination of Lee's life from birth to death. This unique gender-bending theatre performance fluidly integrates text, live original music, video and an explosive hybrid of martial arts and dance. Lee/gendary's efforts are the result of a dedicated collaboration with Kim. This group of talented artists includes: Derek Nguyen (playwright, NYFA recipient, author of full length play Monster, produced by East West Players), Suzi Takahashi (director, artistic director of performance group, Ex.p Girl) and Jen Shyu (composer, instrumentalist and vocalist with Steve Coleman's Five Elements) with additional recorded music by Adam Rogers (acclaimed composer/guitarist). This piece features Kim as Lee as well as 5 other actor/martial artists. Lee/gendary was first presented at HERE's The American Living Room Festival 2006 as a work-in-progress, directed by David Perry with fight choreography by Rafael Kayanan (The Hunted and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind). In December 2006, Lee/gendary was accepted as one of the few projects by an individual artist to represent NYC in The First National Asian American Theater Festival held in New York City which ran June 11 - 24, 2007. Lee/gendary enjoyed a successful run at The Beckett theater on Theatre Row, June 19th-21st. The last show was sold out and received a rave review from nytheatre.com: "Then, there is Kim, who is outstanding as Lee. Hers is a convincing performance of rigorous physicality and impressive commitment. She scores big points in the case for non-traditional gender casting by showing that the key to such successes lies in having the right attitude. Oh boy, does she have the attitude! As Lee himself says early in the play, 'Champions are made from something inside them.' Kim's performance proves that." -Michael Criscuolo, nytheatre.com DEREK NGUYEN - Writer, Collaborator Derek Nguyen is the author of the plays; Zuzu's Petals (Sherrill C. Corwin Award), Voices: A Theatrical Quilt (Sherrill C. Corwin Award), Last Year's Kisses (published in the Asian Pacific American Journal) and Mother's Milk (commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum.) A Slight Itch (Y2K New Voices Playwriting Award) was presented at the 1999 Just Add Water Festival at New York Theatre Workshop where he was a 1998 Van Lier Playwriting Fellow. Monster (nominated for a 2002 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Play) was presented at the 2001 New Work Now! Festival at the Public Theater and received its world premiere at East West Players in Los Angeles. He was a 2004 fellow at the Sundance Institute's Screenwriters Lab (for the screenplay adaptation of Monster entitled Wrestling Monsters) and a 2004-2005 fellow in Playwriting/Screenwriting for the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is currently working on several screenplay projects including My Dead Wife (co-written by Johanna Lee), Seeing Red (co-written by Liselle Mei) and a new screenplay entitled Future Lives in which he received a grant from the Urban Artists Initiative/NYC. Hung, a feature length comedy screenplay is currently under option by Tiffani Thiessen and R. Dean Johnson at Tit 4 Tat Productions. SUZI TAKAHASHI- Director Suzi Takahashi holds a BA in Theater from Barnard, an MA in Performance Studies from NYU, and is a current doctoral student at The Graduate Center. Suzi has also trained with the SITI Company. As an actor, Suzi has performed for artists like Richard Foreman, Richard Schechner, Taylor Mac, Emma Griffin, and Kristin Marting. Past credits include: Dead End, Dreading Thekla (dir. Nicholas Martin), Filumena (dir. James Naughton), The Blue Demon(dir. Darko Tresnjak) all at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and Phil Soltanoff's, to whom it may concern (BIETF [Serbia], Gale Gates, and The Kitchen) and Strange Attractors (Five Myles, Mass MoCA). Suzi has also worked with many NYC companies such as Salt Theater and Ma-Yi, and has toured nationally. Directing credits include: St. George Hotel by Chiori Miyagawa (Connelly Theater) and FTM (Int. Transgendered Theater Festival, Pyramid Club.) Suzi is the co-artistic producer of the multicultural performance ensemble, Ex.Pgirl (www.expgirl.org,) with whom she co-created Ablution, Waving Hello, and 10 Plates. Ex.Pgirl is currently a HARP Artist in residence at HERE Art Space. Suzi is also an instructor at Hunter.