Hometown: The island city of Singapore
Education: BFA in drama from NYU Tisch
Select Credits: Playing a wench from the 18th century in full costume in an immersive theater segment and offering audiences beer and sausages (Prototype Theatre Festival); playing a 12-year-old illegal immigrant boy in a play;
Why theater?: That sizzling warm glow and that larger-than-life feeling you sometimes get when you’re in a rehearsal room or sitting backstage looking at your fellow actors work.
Tell us about Rhapsody Collective: Rhapsody Collective brings together an ensemble of artists (playwrights, directors and actors) to create new plays from the ground up, which culminates in a final presentation in May. Playwrights, directors and actors each meet once a week, to work on their craft, and to explore new material from each other or existing material, in a safe and supportive environment.
Who do you play in Earth Learned Cruelty?: I play Lucy, a hipster-ish Brooklynite in the midst of breaking up with her boyfriend when…. No spoilers! Come see it May 21st!
Tell us about Earth Learned Cruelty: An absurdist play and maybe horror story and maybe political play but with lots of humanity. It’s hard to describe this play without revealing too much plot-wise!
What is it like being a part of Rhapsody Collective?: It has been wonderful getting to meet many other theater artists in the NYC theater community, and being a part of creating a wholly new play is always very exciting. Additionally, a different prompt is given to the playwrights each season, and it is very interesting how all 6 plays deal with that prompt in very different ways.
What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: I love pieces that are raw, and have a degree of strangeness or weirdness to them. Too many inspirations to list, but one at the top of my head is the music of my voice teacher at NYU, Jonathan Hart Makwaia.
Any roles you’re dying to play?: I almost feel like naming them puts a silly jinx of some sort and then I’ll never get to play those roles! So I’m gonna avoid this question!
What’s your favorite showtune?: I don’t really have a particular showtune that I love the absolute best, but I recently watched a group of 6 year olds perform “When I Grow Up” from Matilda and what a tear-jerker!
If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: John Doyle
Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: I don’t think my life would ever be interesting enough to be made into a movie, and if it were, I would hope I’d just play myself! I mean, when else would I get a chance to be the lead on the big screen?? It would be called something random like “The Yellow Crawling Apple” or something just because I’m random like that.
If you could go back in time and see any play or musical you missed, what would it be?: Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin in Sunday in the Park with George, the off-Broadway productions of Here Lies Love, Heathers, Hamilton (I must have slept through 2014/2015)
What show have you recommended to your friends?: Deaf West Theatre’s Spring Awakening, the recent The Color Purple revival, and this is not theater but Batsheva Dance Company
What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Food. I love food!
What’s up next?: performing in a really fun clowning show A Fool’s Paradise at The Brick May 30; music directing a sci-fi feminist new musical in July as part of the SheNYC Summer Theater Festival!
For more on Yeujia, visit yeujialow.com. For more on Rhapsody Collective, visit facebook.com/rhapsodycollective
