Press

In ‘Heart Strings,’ the Ties That Bind a Family (and a Culture)

Atlantic for Kids’ new play explores sibling relationships, using the delicate weavings of a Hawaiian craft.

By Laurel Graeber

Published Oct. 4, 2022

‘Happy Life’ Review: Ghosts in the Studio

The playwright Kathy Ng imagines a world where mortality, eroticism and Hello Kitty collide in a spirited, if sometimes muddled, contemplation of loneliness and loss.

By Naveen Kumar

July 29, 2022

SELECT REVIEW QUOTES:

“To bring off so well a show with so many moving parts and such an amorphous sense of mise en scène is a feat, and the final act—which inspires both gravitas and glee—shows director Yen’s knowing grasp of how theater must often transcend or transform its material.”

– Donald Brown
Surviving with the Simpsons — New Haven Review

“For a small budget production staging Ng’s fantastical and outlandish concepts, director Kat Yen’s handles them well. Dramatic lighting changes, booming sound effects, and blackouts help to usher in a plague of dead birds or beer foam seeping from a wound.”

 – Nicole Serratore
Happy Life at Walkerspace - Exeunt Magazine NYC (exeuntnyc.com)

“Director Kat Yen took advantage of all the vertical and horizontal spaces in the theater, including the catwalk. The actors took beautiful care in delivering performances that were both impassioned and earnest, and they deftly balanced wit and sobriety while tackling complex content. Coupled with the exquisite lighting, sound, and costume designs, audience members were fully immersed in the brutal celestial apocalypse of “Marisol.”

I watched the Sunday matinee performance, and when the show ended and the actors took their bows, the entire audience sat in unmoving silence. Even when the tech crew began to clean up, no one seemed ready to return to the world as they knew it. This experience perfectly captures the gut-wrenching and thought-provoking performance that is “Marisol.”’

-Regan Collins
Rivera’s 'Marisol' remains frighteningly relevant today  - Campus Times