Big Zoo is the happiest place on earth! So how come the zebras are stampeding? Why is the weasel starting an insurrection? And what’s going on with the secretive Zookeeper? In this surreal, high-octane fable, the absurdity of life inside Big Zoo illuminates the beliefs and systems we impose upon ourselves. The antics of Big Zoo’s colorful cast of humans and animals (and it isn’t always easy to tell the difference between the two) throws into relief the absurdity of our own lives.
Working from a script by Taiwanese playwright Wei Yu-Chia, translator Jeremy Tiang and director Nana Dakin will delve into the depths of this complex, multi-faceted play, with a process that treats cultural and dramatic translation as an opportunity for hybridity and multiple layers of interpretation.
Nana Dakin is a queer Thai American director of new work, classics and devised performance based in NYC. Her work pursues social equity by examining the way culture is constructed and unsettling dormant biases. She is the first Thai theatre director to direct at the Royal Court Theatre in London and in NYC she has developed work with Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, Ma-Yi Theater Company, New York Theatre Workshop, The Playwrights Realm, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Song Collective, Columbia University’s International Play Reading Festival, and more. She is a core member of B-Floor Theatre, Thailand’s most highly awarded theatre company, and of Superhero Clubhouse, a company that creates theater to enact climate and environmental justice. Nana is also the Board President of the Thai Theatre Foundation, and part of the 2022/23 Soho Rep Writer Director Lab. MFA Theatre Directing: Columbia University. www.nanadakin.com
Jeremy Tiang is a playwright, novelist and translator from Chinese. Their work for the stage includes A Dream of Red Pavilions, The Last Days of Limehouse and Salesman之死, as well as translations of plays by Chen Si’an, Zhan Jie and Quah Sy Ren. Their translation of Wei Yu-Chia’s A Fable for Now was performed at the PEN World Voices Festival, and has been published by Egret Press. They have also translated over twenty-five books, including novels by Lo Yi-Chin, Yeng Pway Ngon, Yan Ge, Chan Ho-Kei, Zhang Yueran, Shuang Xuetao, Liu Xinwu and Geling Yan. Their novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. Earlier this year, they were the Princeton University Translator-in-Residence and an International Booker Prize judge. Originally from Singapore, they trained as an actor at Drama Centre London and now live in Flushing, Queens. www.JeremyTiang.com