SELECT REVIEWS FOR DIRECTION
“Encountering a great piece of art can lead to a moment of transcendence. That’s the idea behind the mother-daughter tour of Florence in The Light in the Piazza, the 2005 musical romance composed by Adam Guettel and written by Craig Lucas. And for audiences at New York City Center, where an exquisite Encores! revival directed by Chay Yew opened on Wednesday, a sensational performance by Ruthie Ann Miles delivers a feeling close to the sublime. Miles also radiates wry intelligence, as an astute mother hoping to rein in her daughter’s increasingly unbridled impulses, another aspect of the story heightened by casting the characters as Asian American. Fabrizio’s family tends to be broader, though knowingly. It’s a self-conscious nod, from Guettel and Lucas, to their uncommon fusion of operatic melodrama with the psychological realism of contemporary musical theater. In Yew’s concert staging, which runs through Sunday, those elements cohere seamlessly. (Though Miles and the ensemble carry leather-bound scripts that resemble guidebooks, the production is fully and beautifully staged.) The 16-member orchestra is the magnificent centerpiece, elevated on a colonnade platform that runs the length of the stage. The set design by Clint Ramos and Miguel Urbino emphasizes depth of field, its white framework a receptive canvas for Linda Cho’s refined midcentury costumes and the warm ambers of David Weiner’s lighting.” - THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, New York Times
“This long-overdue revival is nothing less than vocally stunning, and the singer-actors do complete justice to this century’s greatest musical. I was going to write “greatest score,” but the real revelation of this Encores! production under the astute direction of Chay Yew is Lucas’ stage adaptation of the novel by Elizabeth Spencer. Lucas’ book is as light as the sun falling on the Arno River and as rock solid as the Ponte Vecchio itself. Zavelson presents a far more disturbed child than Kelli O’Hara did in the original production. Yew’s direction raises the stakes dramatically. He plays up the many scenes in which the daughter, set off by some minor incident or comment, has a complete mental breakdown. It has been the mother’s job to handle these situations. When it quickly becomes obvious that a young male stranger can fill that role far more effectively, again, what’s a mom to do? Yew also makes much of the musical’s secondary love story, the one between the two parents who just happen to be married to other people. Miles and Hernandez, beautifully understated throughout, turn this unexpected moment into a dramatic highlight, imbuing it with incredible erotic a pleasure to see an audience sit silent and spellbound whenever Zavelson, Gish and Miles sing. Repeatedly, the well-deserved ovations were held until after the very last note.” - THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, The Wrap
"Piazza might not seem like a natural choice for City Center Encores! current summer selection: The 2005 Lincoln Center Theater production—directed by Bartlett Sher, starring Victoria Clark, who’d earn her first Best Actress Tony, and Kelli O’Hara—ran for more than 500 performances; it also won six Tonys, including Best Score for Guettel and Best Orchestrations for Guettel, Ted Sperling, and Bruce Coughlin. (Best Musical, however, went to the silly-walking, French-taunting, scenery-chewing Monty Python screen-to-stage vehicle Spamalot.) So Piazza isn’t exactly problematic or unappreciated. But sometimes you have the chance to, in the words of another not-so-obvious Encores! show, “give us more to see.” And that’s exactly what this gorgeous Piazza, directed by Chay Yew—whose work ranges from Luis Alfaro’s Sophocles–meets–South Central Oedipus El Rey to Lauren Yee’s electric Cambodian Rock Band musical—does.” - THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, New York Stage Review
“Beautifully directed by Chay Yew, the rest of the cast members include Andréa Burns and Ivan Hernandez as Fabrizio's parents, Rodd Cyrus and Shereen Ahmed as his brother and sister-in-law, and Michael Hayden as Margaret's husband, whom we meet briefly during a couple of long-distance phone calls. The ensemble is particularly effective at providing a sense of a busy Florentine thoroughfare, with nuns and priests, tourists and tour guides, and even bicyclists in great abundance.” - THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, Talkin’ Broadway New York
"“Why did I enlist? Why did I go to war?” are but two of the questions that Private Danny Chen asks himself in the powerful docu-opera, An American Soldier, by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang. It was directed thoughtfully and surely by Chay Yew in its New York debut Sunday afternoon at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC-NYC) at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.Performing on the simple set by designer Daniel Ostling with Nicholas Hussong’s projections, Jeanette Yew’s lighting and David Bullard’s sound design, the opera uses the framework of a trial with flashbacks of key moments that resulted in Chen’s eventual death. The result is a powerful piece of music theatre, with a score by Ruo that gives ample opportunity for the singers to show off their vocal and dramatic skills." - AN AMERICAN SOLDIER, Broadway World New York
“With music by Huang Ruo and a libretto by David Henry Hwang, an opera at New York’s Perelman Performing Arts Center about a viciously bullied Army private proved taut and haunting. Chay Yew’s taut, theatrical staging captured the opera’s anguish. The well-structured libretto is built around the military trial of Sgt. Aaron Marcum, accused of driving Danny to his death: the story glides seamlessly back and forth from courtroom to flashbacks of Danny’s life before and during his Army service. Clean, geometric directing zeroes in on the figures populating the space, other it’s a line of running soldiers in fatigues (Linda Cho did the costumes) or the intense emotions of a soloist onstage.” - AN AMERICAN SOLDIER, Wall Street Journal
“In An American Soldier, a world-premiere opera seen on May 12th at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) in Manhattan, composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang turned this devastating news story into a morality tale about bigotry in general and anti-Asian hate in particular. Chay Yew’s stage direction is clever and efficient, allowing for free flow from courtroom to Mother Chen’s kitchen, to Afghanistan and back. All of that is achieved with almost no sets (a kitchen table, a few sandbags, not much else). The stage remains a big, empty box reshaped scene by scene thanks to Jeanette Yew’s lighting and Nicholas Hussong’s projections.” - AN AMERICAN SOLDIER, Classical Voice North America
“Alongside Alfaro’s hard-hitting narrative was the contrastingly brutal and fanciful staging of Chay Yew, a director whose ability to craft a story with the human body is unmatched in Chicago. Back again at Victory Gardens, Luis Alfaro’s Mojada is the playwright’s take on the story of “Medea,” the vengeful sorceress of morally questionable resolve (by today’s standards), set against a backdrop of faltering immigration policy in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. Yew once again directs, and this new collaboration is every bit as thunderous as Oedipus. While the issue of immigration continues to take the spotlight of the national stage, plays like Mojada and Home/Land by Albany Park Theater Project are necessary reminders of the importance of theater: a larger-than-life medium that appreciates that our struggles, our fears, our insecurities, our longings, our wants and our needs are larger-than-life too." - MOJADA, New City Stage Chicago
“Spellbinding theater. Chay Yew, artistic director of Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater who also directed the Public’ production of Oedipus El Rey, has staged the stunning and devastating play with an excellent cast of Hispanic-American actors which is as timely as tomorrow’s headlines.” - MOJADA, Theatre Scene Chicago
“For audiences aware of even the vaguest outline of Medea's story, there's a pall hanging somewhere high above the early, almost-playful scenes between Medea and Jason and Acan. Mojada's scenes begin to accelerate as the play, directed with fluidity and emotional variety by Chay Yew, wraps itself more tightly around the source material, this contemporary storyline colliding into its ancient ancestor until there is no escape. What Mojada leaves audiences with, in its essential final moments, is neither story nor image nor dialogue but sound. Mikhail Fiksel's design bathes Mojada in defining soundscapes (the memories of Mexican ocean, the suffocation of New York sidewalks, the metallic dustiness of the border), but it is Medea whose voice rings out at the end, imitating the call of the Guaco bird. It is the cry of a woman seeking connection and meeting only — inevitably — with a country that does not hear her.” - MOJADA, CurtainUp New York
“Director Chay Yew employs an impressive range of theatrical tools to tell a story that is both ancient and modern. Arnulfo Maldonado's set has a thrusting layout fit for a Greek amphitheater, but the treatment is unmistakably Queens, right down to the peeling paint on the back patio. Lighting designer David Weiner, sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, and projection designer Stephen Mazurek transport us into Medea's shadowy memories: Moving lights and the sound of a helicopter bring an ICE raid into the theater (a scene that feels particularly urgent this week). Yew endows the scenes between Pilar and Medea with mythic importance, but the dramatic tension is pure telenovela, causing the audience to gasp and "oooooo" at this 2,500-year-old story.” - MOJADA, TheatreMania New York
“Theater that combines history and activism can become mired in its message. Marcus Gardley is confident enough in his voice and in those that will interpret his vision to trust that the story and message will be clear if he creates powerful characters. As the title indicates, and the events of the play dictate, The House That Will Not Stand and its inhabitants are condemned, both from within and without. The final moments are striking in that the audience knows American history better than the characters can. However, these characters are centuries ahead of their fates, and their voices speak truths that are still relevant today, and fight for the power and rights they and their spiritual descendants deserve. Chay Yew and his cast and designers mine Gardley's vision for every nuance and create an epic response to an historical event. Though the play explores the roots of American racism and repression, this version of the past holds a mirror that reflects a clear view of the present. It is rare to find such a bold vision, staged with fearlessness and insight by such a talented ensemble.” - THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND, Chicago Stage and Screen
“Directed by Chay Yew with energy and flair, it’s the most successful offering yet from the Sol Project, an initiative dedicated to producing the work of Latinx playwrights. On Riccardo Hernandez’s set, adorned with a lurid mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mr. Alfaro riffs on his Greek source, but this play is a negative of the Sophocles original. What Sophocles left offstage — the violence, the sex — Mr. Yew confidently stages. What preoccupied the Greeks — the shepherds, the oracles, the hunt for Laius’s murderer — falls away. This gives Oedipus El Rey swagger, oomph and economy.” - OEDIPUS EL REY, New York Times
“The beating heart of this production is director Chay Yew, who makes immediately clear that he won’t allow the audience to watch the story unfold from a safe distance, sending the prisoners out into the audience to begin their ritual. We are never permitted the detachment we might feel during a traditional telling of Oedipus Rex, as the men are emphatic that, “this is our story!” Yew’s pacing makes it feel that way throughout the entire 95 minutes. This drama moves quickly, and is constantly engaging without ever feeling rushed. While Yew’s fast-paced storytelling is impressive, his best work is in his still, more intimate scenes. The moment when Oedipus and his mother Jocasta go to bed together, having pillow-talk while nude downstage on a rotating platform, is sensual and serene, but wrought with premonitory undertones of the tragic horror that lies ahead. Kevin Depinet’s set, a series of jailhouse iron bars and graffiti covered buildings, is beautifully utilized throughout." - OEDIPUS EL REY, Chicago Stage and Cinema
“While director Chay Yew's elegant production is rich with imagery contrasting contemporary violence, ancient storytelling and religious symbolism, the showcase moment is a tender and thoughtful lovemaking scene between mother and son. What is clear is that their attraction is intellectual as well as physical, as they discuss the forces that have brought their lives to what they have become, and the importance of personal choices versus inevitability of fate." -OEDIPUS EL REY, Broadway World New York
“Director Chay Yew mounts a spectacular production of Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey, a reworking of Sophocles’ tragedy set in the Barrio of present-day Los Angeles. Energetic performances, excellent use of a spare but effective set, dramatic lighting and music all make a powerful impression. Mr. Yew’s revved up actors energetically crisscross the stage, fight, work out, climb up columns, open and close the sliding metal gates which serve as everything from prison bars to park fences. There are some wonderfully inventive visual effects, like when three owls visit Oedipus. Three actors, invisible in the shadows, put on mittens on which are drawn reflective green “eyes” that glow, blinking every time the actors close and open their hands. The effect is delightful. And the sphinx as a glowing emerald dragon is magical. The show makes an impression on the eyes” - OEDIPUS EL REY, New York Stage and Cinema
One of the most widely produced new American plays of the current season, Lauren Yee's plugged-in confrontation with genocidal history, Cambodian Rock Band, takes its New York bow in Chay Yew's electric production. Directed by Yew with an assured hand at maintaining focus through Yee’s time jumps and tricky tonal shifts, the production opens with the band The Cyclos powering through two propulsive numbers. Director Yew staged the play’s 2018 premiere at South Coast Rep, which commissioned the work, and has mounted a number of productions since. That long association is evident in his tight control over its unwieldy dramaturgy and his sensitivity toward even the most flawed characters. The production’s design elements are first-rate.” - CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, Hollywood Reporter
“Director Chay Yew frames his sublimely magnificent cast with exquisite precision, assisted mightily by Takeshi Kata’s scenic design, loaded with infinite surprises. Rock music lurches the story into the ether; as lead vocalist Sothea, the cherubic Quintos reaches divinity with each regal note. Meanwhile, hard choices of survival are made, unlocking demons that Chum must carry in his suitcase while escaping the Khmer Rouge to the United States. Survival, then redemption, awaits. For all the intricate storytelling in Cambodian Rock Band, its rousing finale gives the people what they want. There’s little in this world more joyful than a live tune cranked to 11 after experiencing brutal depredation while newly converted Cambodian rock fans get on their feet to worship their heroes.” - CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, KQED San Francisco
“While working on a very different script that explored Chicago’s Great Migration, playwright Marcus Gardley instead became inspired by current events happening around the country to write an historical drama, set in 17th century Jamestown. Moved by the tragedies in Ferguson, of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and so many other recent senseless crimes against men and women of color, Gardley felt that another story needed to be told. “In order to begin a conversation about race relations,” Mr. Gardley says, “you need to start at the beginning.” And thus an historic parable unfolds, peppered with humor, magic and Negro folk songs, and presenting a tale of class distinction, racial prejudice and human rights. Set on a large Colonial Virginian tobacco planation, this play brings to life six characters, black and white, whose lives ultimately become entwined. Chay Yew’s wonderfully stirring, gorgeously mounted production of Marcus Gardley’s new play, may tell a tale from a time long ago, but the story actually reflects and is inspired by recent current events. This 90-minute one-act should spark many a conversation about how race relations have evolved over the years but how, in so many ways, they continue to remain the same. This is one of Victory Garden’s best productions and shouldn’t be missed. Highly Recommended.” - AN ISSUE OF BLOOD, Chicago Theatre Review
"Receiving its world premiere at Victory Gardens Theater under the sharply elegant direction of the theater’s artistic director Chay Yew, Boo Killebrew's Lettie is one of those over-the-top superb Chicago theatrical experiences that seems to spring up with little warning every so often — think Tony winners August: Osage County and The Humans — filled with a complete array of world-class performances and capturing an essential expression of contemporary American life. Yew’s impeccable production has a clean, simple theatricality. He and set designer Andrew Boyce choose a bare set with a standing door and a few pieces of mobile furniture, and get particular help from Stephan Mazurek’s black-and-white projections, which are naturalistic and highly expressive without being too literal.” - LETTIE, Variety
“Directed with unflinching honesty by Chay Yew, Lettie feels like a new story, but the elements present as fresh and familiar to anyone who faces the monumental and unfamiliar task of making good life choices. Chay Yew keeps the dialogue overlapping and truthful, and allows the silences to contribute as much to the story as the actors do.” - LETTIE, Perform!nk Chicago
“The South Pacific now playing (through Aug. 11) at Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Conn., goes even further, casting a Black actor, Cameron Loyal, as Cable. (The Marine Corps did not commission its first Black officer until 1945, but no matter.) In a staging by Chay Yew, a Singapore-born director, everything lands differently without changing a line. The reaction of the white Seabees to the Black officer, no less than his to them, lights up the entire racial structure of the show. Cable’s connection to and abandonment of Liat elevate and enlarge that story. As the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog makes plain — see also The King and I and Flower Drum Song — appropriation was a goal, not a sin, in those postwar years, when finding commonalities among peoples seemed paramount. Even now, I’d argue, appropriation can be a good thing, when done with sensitivity to honor rather than commodify diverse cultural expressions." - SOUTH PACIFIC, New York Times
“That sweaty, human approach is what makes this production at the Goodspeed Opera House work so well. There’s still fancy dancing and gorgeous singing and crazy comedy and more hit songs than any three other musicals. There’s not just one but two deep, soul-stirring love stories, and there’s the musical theater language of sweetness and beauty. Yet, to the Goodspeed’s credit, the Pacific island environment is not falsely idealized as it often is. This South Pacific is not an enchanted paradise. There are characters who do courageous things, but they are not presented like mythic heroes. The cast is not some uniform idea of what theatergoers are supposed to find attractive. They’re all shapes and sizes, all individuals, each striking and engaging in their own way. South Pacific becomes about everyday folks in extraordinary situations. Keeping things real also solves a serious problem. For a show that hinges on a bigoted reaction to a personal revelation, then explores in a song how racist impulses are “carefully taught” and cruelly instilled in people at a young age, the original South Pacific was seemingly oblivious to how many harmful cultural, social and gender stereotypes it was perpetuating. Chay Yew, who’s better known for developing new works and doing intimate experimental productions (among them Alaudin Ullah’s autobiographical immigrant tale Dishwasher Dreams at Hartford Stage in 2022) turns out to be an ideal choice to finesse the play’s problematic parts so that you can ponder them in context and they don’t pull you right out of enjoying the show. This is splashy summer show about life, love, respect and responsibility. The Goodspeed does it up proud in a way that makes you believe.” - SOUTH PACIFIC, Hartford Courant
“A stark blond-wood platform, blood-red rose petals scattered at its sides, a branch of a red-blooming cherry tree overhead, an enormous white rectangle painted on a black brick wall at its rear, surrounded by 20 or so chairs that might have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Tokyo's Imperial Hotel in each of which an Asian woman dressed in black sits. One's initial impression of Chay Yew's beautifully realized production of Lorca's masterpiece, The House of Bernarda Alba, is of its Asian influences. Mr. Yew has brilliantly accented the proceedings with a chorus of twelve black-clad women who sometimes clap, sometimes sing or hum and occasionally enter the story. The sum effect — aided by Stephen Petrilli's dramatic lighting, a couple of songs by Fabian Obispo and even Kristin Jackson's choreography — is stunning. Yew executes a trunkful of splendid ideas (both in his dramaturgy and stagecraft) worthy of extended discussion that I'll resist engaging in here.” - THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, CurtainUp New York
“Chay Yew’s percussive staging of Federico Garcia Lorca’s classic drama The House of Bernarda Alba is a reminder of the stark simplicity at the heart of true theater. Opening with a rhythmic ululation that comes from the very marrow of the 22-woman cast, the production closes with a wordless spasm of grief that seems to possess thesp Ching Valdes-Aran body and soul. Indeed, Yew’s taut reimagining of the erotic intrigues and longings in a house of cloistered daughters and their maternal jailer is indelible in its intensity.Lorca’s poetic drama is frequently revived but hardly ever done well. There’s something about its dense imagery and hydra-headed feminine claustrophobia that seems to bring out the histrionic in directors and actresses. In contrast, Yew’s production is taut and controlled, and his superbly disciplined cast features the earthy dynamite of Kati Kuroda as the maid La Poncia, set against the mountainous will of Valdes-Aran as matriarch Bernarda Alba.The song sends a pulse of beauty into the air, one of many such moments in this remarkably plangent production. To his credit, Yew’s direction is a clean and elemental chiaroscuro, rich with shadows and suppressed emotion. There is nothing superfluous here. The choral arrangement of Yew’s large cast gives the play a feeling of classical symmetry; ringing the tiny, bare wood stage is a human frame of seated, impassive women in black. These woman become the sea, the wind, the humming voice of mourning itself — yet they watch the poisoned struggles and sly seditions of Bernarda’s five daughters with a grand impassivity. In this Asian-American transposition of Lorca’s milieu, a hint of ancestral faiths hovers over the clean wooden stage without becoming explicit: the observances of watchful ancestors; the touch of a florid and passionate Catholicism in the Philippines; the inscribed parchment messages posted at Shinto village shrines to supplicate the dead and request small rearrangements of fate. Chay Yew and the talented cast have done right by each of the women in this convulsive family; the poet Lorca himself might be proud to see such a fine production growing in the theatrical soil of his beloved New York City.” - THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, Variety
“Playwright Marcus Gardley says his new work was originally inspired by the epidemic of gun violence in his hometown of Oakland, California. But he set The Gospel of Lovingkindness in Chicago, where it's receiving a powerful world premiere at Victory Gardens. Director Chay Yew says Gardley has been inspired to tell Chicago stories since joining VG's new playwrights ensemble in 2012. Lovingkindness's tale is sadly all too common in Chicago, but its ultimate yearning hopefulness is universal. Yew's staging, on a fascinatingly ethereal set over which Kevin Depinet hangs floating signifiers of place and memory, isn't all somber; in fact, it's often blisteringly funny, and also contains well-handled bits of otherworldly whimsy, as when Mary and Noel are each visited separately on the Pink Line by a 152-year-old Ida B. Wells (Williams, absolutely delicious here and as Mary's post office coworker).” - THE GOSPEL OF LOVINGKINDNESS, Time Out Chicago
“The Age of Innocence is a gorgeously sumptuous and lush production full of beautiful people, costumes, and lighting, as it explores the true cost of keeping up appearances. Direction by Chay Yew is as elegantly restrained as the characters." - THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, Broadway World San Diego
“Director Chay Yew's staging for The Old Globe has given The Age of Innocence a lushly costumed production designed by Susan E. Mickey on Arnulfo Maldonado's minimalist, uncurtained stage that swiftly transforms from scene to scene with the raising and lowering of a chandelier or a table that emerges from the stark white floor and isolated pieces of muted furniture delivered by stagehands dressed as lower-class 19th-century workers. Scenes are backlit with a glowing rear-wall screen of singular, solid primary colors that set the mood and provide evocative silhouettes of the ten-person cast as well as backing for pinpointed character moments. Lee Fiskness's lighting design makes for vivid, almost formal stage pictures. This episodic production (two hours, 20 minutes, one intermission) never stalls thanks to Yew's fluid direction, even in moments of ineffable emotion. Karen Zacarías's rendition of The Age of Innocence will likely find its way to many American theaters that traffic in classic adaptations." - THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, Talkin'Broadway San Diego
“These two plots merge in a way which is astonishing, horrifying and ultimately heartbreaking. But playwright Robert O’Hara’s larger theme is equally heartbreaking. The entire cast does beautiful work. There are some astonishing developments which a lesser cast might have difficulty delivering convincingly, but there is not a moment in this production which is not absolutely authentic, and absolutely satisfying. Director Chay Yew’s work is also superb, as are the show’s technical aspects. Yew brilliantly intercuts scenes between the two stories, so that the characters from both stories briefly share the stage, and look past, through, and ultimately at each other in ways which unmistakably underscore the play’s core truths. Tony Cisek’s movable set- in particular, his invocation of a foggy haunted Georgia pine forest is brilliant. Valerie St. Pierre Smith’s costumes, and particularly Sarah’s preposterous dress, are great successes. Colin K. Bills’ lighting design, which marks the hour with unerring precision, is wonderful. There are some uncredited special effects at the end of the show which are as good as I’ve seen in Washington. Let me go further than that: Antebellum is the best thing I have ever seen on the Woolly Mammoth stage. Given the company’s distinguished history, that’s saying a lot.” - ANTEBELLUM, DC Theatre Scene
“Director Chay Yew supports the frenetic tone Kristina Wong sets through a production that is equally vibrant and dynamic. The thrust stage resembles a nursery for sewing-machine-happy adults, complete with giant pincushion bean bags and multicolored block-like USPS boxes (set design by Junghyun Georgia Lee). Linda Cho outfits Wong like an action figure (a black jumpsuit is removed to reveal pink camouflage). Lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker and sound designer Mikhail Fiksel collaborate seamlessly to create razor-sharp cues, allowing Wong to practically jump-cut live onstage. An upstage wall of masks serves as a screen for Caite Hevner's projections, which regularly intrude on Wong's sweatshop with archival footage of each fresh hell of 2020-21.” - SWEATSHOP OVERLORD, TheatreMania New York
“Wonderfully directed by Chay Yew, Wong delivers a high-energy tour de force whirlwind perspective on the nastier effects of the pandemic: anti-Asian racism, domestic terror, and a failed response. Undaunted, Wong is shocked to find hundreds of helpers who rise to the occasion, her Auntie Sewing Squad (ASS) who will sew 350,000 masks. There’s plenty of humor to balance the seriousness of the pandemic. She’s a lovable sweatshop overlord, providing normal folks with a higher purpose and saving untold numbers of lives. With millions killed during the pandemic, Wong’s story is one of persistence, purpose, and hope. Wong and her legion of care-taking Aunties counter the negatives with their sheer will.” - SWEATSHOP OVERLORD, Broadway World San Francisco
“The power of 28-year-old wünderkind Charlie Oh's extraordinary, stirring script, combined with brilliant direction from Chay Yew, and beautiful, superb performances from its talented, acting-their-asses-off ensemble cast make Coleman '72 one of the most impressive debut plays this season. I was really intrigued by Daniel Ostling's minimalist scenic design, paired with Stephen Mazurek's projection designs that kept surroundings abstract — perhaps a not-so-subtle direct reflection of the fuzzy, obscured memories these traumatized adults are trying really hard to remember correctly. Pablo Santiago's lighting design help with the time jumps. And thanks mostly to Yew's precise direction and this superb, incredible cast (their skills allow us, the audience, to easily differentiate between their current and past selves and to truly empathize with these characters' lives), the debut of Coleman '72 is a can't miss." - COLEMAN '72, Broadway World Los Angeles
“The design of the play comes together beautifully. Daniel Ostling’s minimalistic set is at once narratively compelling and functional. It is truly refreshing to experience a show that allows our imagination to do the job instead of sensory overload by an overly done design. Pablo Santiago’s lighting design is also minimal, a necessary framing of an internal memory space instead of the quotidian scenes in the play. John Zalewski’s sound design is delightful, especially the baseball-catching sequence. All of this is under the aegis of director Chay Yew, who has masterfully breathed life into this new work." - COLEMAN '72, Los Angeles Stage and Film
“Director Chay Yew stages Black N Blue Boys sharp and incisive simplicity. Set on a largely bare stage (with some rough edges) designed by Daniel Ostling, Yew and lighting designer Ben Stanton keep things deliberately dark so that the dim pools of light center concentration on Dael Orlandersmith as she sheds some illumination her male characters’ difficult lives. Yew and Orlandersmith are greatly aided in their storytelling efforts by sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, who accentuates the drama with telling music cues or ambient noise that often increases along with the recounted tension and horror. The difficult subject matter of Black N Blue Boys no doubt might scare away some theatergoers. But those who brave Black N Blue Boys are in for a richly written and expertly performed piece that should hopefully change perceptions and assumptions on the emotional and physical bruising faced by many boys and men.” - BLACK N BLUE BOYS, Windy City Times Chicago
“What makes the evening attention-grabbing is Chay Yew’s direction, which has Orlandersmith traveling all about the thrust stage configuration at the smaller Owen Theatre. With the aid of Ben Stanton’s gobo lighting effects (film noir-style windows and doorways) and sharp spotlight work, Yew creates a sense of time and place that is astonishing, considering that the set by Daniel Ostling is no more than a wickedly beautiful floor of weathered wooden planks. I would have desired that the show had ended up grabbing my heart in such a way that I felt compelled to help end this cycle of abuse in our world. Whereas Orlandersmith’s contemporary Anne Deavere Smith manages to move me while highlighting her topic (such as the broken health care system), the authoritative creator of Black N Blue Boys nonetheless offers a performance piece saturated with realistic characters who each have a compelling story to tell.” - BLACK N BLUE BOYS, Chicago Stage and Cinema
“Creative riches explode from one small, claustrophobic space in Stuck Elevator, the extraordinary musical that opened Tuesday at American Conservatory Theater. Within the story of a trapped deliveryman and a mere 80 minutes, composer Byron Au Yong, librettist Aaron Jafferis and director Chay Yew pack an epic's worth of inspired music and inspirational content, performances and design. Elevator is Au Yong, Jafferis and Yew's tuneful, thoughtful riff on the true story of undocumented immigrant Ming Kuang Chen, a Chinese-food deliveryman who became trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours in 2005. The result is a vibrant opera-musical theater hybrid with a story both personally compelling and eye-opening. The musical and dramatic impact of "Elevator" is immediate. The potency of its metaphor is guaranteed to linger.” - STUCK ELEVATOR, San Francisco Chronicle
“Brian Quijada isn’t the only one who succeeds at multiple roles. The show’s director, Chay Yew, is similarly chameleon-like in his range of theatrical talents. Yew is a well-known Asian-American playwright who also explores the immigrant experience in his work, and he is currently the artistic director at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre. Quijada’s work was first developed in 2014 at Victory Gardens under Yew, so the pair have a long working relationship. For this production, Yew serves as both director and set designer. The set design is simple and stark, a sharp contrast to the warmth of the show’s music and Quijada’s magnetic effervescence. The set is comprised of a tall stainless-steel table for Quijada’s instruments and equipment and a white wooden chair. As director, Yew surprises us with the clever utilization of his deceivingly simple set. At the play’s opening, Quijada backs up his story to the night he was conceived, mimicking his parents’ voices and a few pelvic thrusts set to sensuous Latin music send him on his way. Quijada presses his hands together and pushes them forward, playfully emulating the sperm’s journey, and he emerges between the table’s legs on the voyage to the egg. A few minutes later, the table’s legs become the birth canal as “boom,” he’s pushed from the womb. Quijada’s hip hop style conveys a comedic vibrancy, but Yew never lets him nestle into a one-note performance. Yew’s set is thoughtfully augmented by the work of projection designer, Liviu Pasare.” - WHERE DID WE SIT ON THE BUS?, On Stage Pittsburgh
“To watch this play unfold is to see playwright David Henry Hwang construct a house of cards with the steadiest of hands, building a taut tale about the value and consequences of two cultural paradigms. Chay Yew's precise direction lays careful emphasis on each telling moment, as Hwang's characters illuminate the tension between the weight of one's history and the seduction of rebirth, between the Western worship of the future and Chinese reverence for the lessons of the past.” - GOLDEN CHILD, Backstage Los Angeles
“This world-premiere production of Larissa FastHorse's Fancy Dancer features not only a nuanced script, but a visually engaging production. Director Chay Yew, choreographer Price Suddarth, and fancy dance choreographer Maxine Alex collaborate to create a dynamic show that plays in unique ways with diagonal sight lines and different styles of movement. Although Fancy Dancer is a solo show, the one performer moves constantly through the space – not just moves, of course, but dances: first with tentative steps, then with greater fluidity, technique, and grace, as she learns to become unafraid of taking up space.” - FANCY DANCER, The Sound on Stage Seattle
“With some wonderful staging from director Chay Yew, and lighting from Geoff Korf and sound from Robertson Witmer, as well as some incredible projections from Caite Hevner and Ann Slote, the play is a feast for the eyes as well as the soul. And so, with my three-letter rating system, I give the world premiere of Fancy Dancer from the Seattle Rep and Seattle Children’s Theatre an “if only I could still dance like that” YAY.” - FANCY DANCER, Broadway World Seattle
"Though lately Jose Rivera has penned such straightforward screenplays as The Motorcycle Diaries and Trade, the wilder reaches of the playwright’s imagination are operating full force in Brainpeople. The ACT commission is a one-act with three damaged women exercising their “madnesses” during a dinner party that serves some mysterious purpose for its hostess. When her intent is finally revealed, the play, performances and Chay Yew’s production arrive at something strangely poignant and haunting. But getting there is more peculiar than pointed, or even particularly engaging.” - BRAINPEOPLE, Variety
“Dishwasher Dreams is an intimate production. Throughout the performance, Alauddin Ullah roams the empty stage with only a single chair as a prop. The audience follows him physically through the deft use of a spotlight that tracks the comedian back and forth and side to side with Sharma’s tablas providing atmospheric accents. The result is an absorbing one-way conversation between Ullah and the attentive audience. The technical credits are assigned to Yu Shibagaki (set designer), Anshuman Bhatia (lighting designer), and Izumi Inaba (costume designer). But the man behind the scenes, hero of the production, is director Chay Yew, who gave Chicagoland audiences so many terrific productions as the artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater from 2011 to 2020. Under Yew’s partnership with Ullah, Dishwasher Dreams sustains its hold on the audience the full time and actually builds dramatically down the stretch. Hopefully local theaters will lure the director back for more assignments. He is a master.” -DISHWASHER DREAMS, Chicago Stage and Cinema
“Directed with pleasant subtlety by Chay Yew, the play, in its few sharpest moments, offers palpable tension and organic humor, conveyed strongly by actors Jin Suh and Nelson Mashita. Yew's direction elevates the material by maintaining a relaxed pace and keeping the tone restrained whenever possible. His transitions during the many scenes are smooth, usually assisted by one character remaining onstage, half-lit, while furniture or the "car" are rolled into view. The lighting, designed by Jose Lopez, reflects Julia Cho's mostly somber tone, with characters often partially obscured by shadow, or lost in near darkness. Video projections, sometimes still and sometimes in motion, of winding mountain roads, the desert and motel signs, fill a large screen upstage. They add a sense of environment to Donna Marquet's minimal set design.” - DURANGO, Los Angeles Downtown News
“The back-of-house "family" of busser/runners Irwin follows through a slow New York summer is composed of two illegal Mexican immigrants, Jorge and Pepe; a third-generation Mexican-American from Brooklyn, Whalid; and an African-American from Harlem named Peter. The men move in unison like a well-oiled machine in a perpetual groundhog day, without even shifts in daylight or weather pattern infiltrating the fluorescently lit space. Playwright Elizabeth Irwin lays us down in the well-worn kitchen of an upscale restaurant on Madison Avenue (designed with expert detail by Wilson Chin), and holds her four characters captive in this confined space for the duration of the 95-minute play. As the restaurant takes on an increasing familiarity, we find Chay Yew's concise direction shrewdly captures the sharp rhythms of kitchen life — the rhythms that keep lemons sliced, bread baskets filled, and workers irrevocably entangled in one another's lives, for better or worse.” - MY MANANA COMES, TheaterMania New York
“Bathhouse.pptx is a thrillingly transgressive concept. Jesus Valles imagines life in 2034, a time when the last of the bathhouses have shuttered. One of them, the North Hollywood Spa, has since transformed into a very progressive high school, where the Presenter offers a nostalgic look back at the building and others like it. Valles has an admirably rebellious spirit — you’d have to in order to depict, in an off-Broadway theater full of pious liberals, a representative of the CDC as anything other than a heroic teller of truths. But Valles cannot resist feasting on the academic word salad that is served on the side of so much of our culture. Director Chay Yew compensates with a visually stimulating production. You-Shin Chen’s set evokes bathhouse cabins, little doors pack tightly together, which also help facilitate the rapid entrances and exits the script requires. Reza Behjat’s dim lighting and the gentle underscoring of disco (seductive sound design by John Gasper) help complete the environment. Meanwhile, projection designer Nicholas Hussong has dutifully created the title PowerPoint, which violently yanks us out of the illusion.” - BATHHOUSE.PPTX, TheatreMania New York
“This exhilarating piece by the performance group Universes might be a herald of VG’s new era. It’s also badass on its own artistic merits. The arrival of Ameriville at Victory Gardens is big news in a couple of ways. First, it’s a major statement about the Chay Yew Era, as VG’s new artistic director scrapped a previously slated Theresa Rebeck play to slot in this piece, which Yew developed with the performance group Universes.The show’s the imagery it invokes — in Yew’s staging, in Brian Freeland’s projections and in Universes’ words — can be unsettling; at times, it may feel like an indictment of modern America. But Ameriville ends on a hopeful, imperative note. If the picture it paints of our modern country isn’t always pretty, it encourages us to get out our brushes and paint a better one.” - AMERIVILLE, Time Out Chicago
“Deftly weaving humor, song and raw emotion, with an ear for beat poetry and hip-hop, Universes does not shy away from asking uncomfortable questions.“Ameriville” is sharply poignant, personal and moving. There is no single plot line or linear story other than the tale we all know from 2005; each actor plays several characters. The ensemble — made up of Steven Sapp, Gamal Chasten, William Ruiz, and Mildred Ruiz, in a show directed by Chay Yew — is fluid, smooth and fun to watch, even in addressing such grim subject matter.” - AMERIVILLE, Denver Post
“This script is intelligent, complex, and artful; almost every member of the nine-person ensemble cast is excellent (Shelley Reynolds, Ian Bell, Ron Simons, and Susanna Burney were fucking phenomenal); and Chay Yew’s direction provides some of the most visually arresting moments of theater I’ve seen in Seattle in a long time. The back of the stage is an unpainted wall that, depending on the light, can be a college classroom, a bar, a jury room, or the wide, dark, cold Wyoming sky. The only furniture in any of the three acts is a group of straight-back wooden chairs; these chairs represent, among other things, the fence Shepherd was tied to as he was beaten up, and–in a particularly horrific scene–the fists and feet and pistol used to beat him. None of the actors plays Shepard, and the script never quotes him directly. This play is about what grows up around an absence, how others see and create a person in memory–it is also less about a singular instance of brutality than about the potential for brutality in many of us.” THE LARAMIE PROJECT, Seattle Stranger
“Visual artists are keenly conscious of "negative space" -- the area between objects or figures or masses of color. Though stage artists don't usually concern themselves much with negative space, director Chay Yew makes it central to The Laramie Project, a docudrama playing at, yes, the Empty Space Theatre. Matthew Shepard, per se, is not a character in The Laramie Project. The play's cast of 68 characters does not include him. At the end of the first act, nine performers gather around a spot of light on the stage floor. They gape in horror, as if looking at a nearly dead, battered body. The light represents Shepard. That light, that negative space, throws a town and its inhabitants into sharp relief. Homophobia and compassion, class hatred and human solidarity, cowardice and courage, denial and obsession, intoxication and sobriety are highly defined. The Space production is excellent. Director Yew creates a spare, cool, clear story. There are no effusions even though the suffering is poignant, the evil is repellant, the humor (there is a surprising amount of humor in The Laramie Project) is effective and the nobility is luminous. Yew's concept is Zenlike. From time to time the actors make sharp, percussive noises with their hands or with objects. The sound interrupts, punctuates and emphasizes a fraught moment, much like the crack of a Zen master's stick. Though Yew's production doesn't include towering histrionic intensity, all nine of his actors have plenty of impressive moments as they take on seven or eight roles. Distraught weeping is reportedly a frequent reaction to productions of The Laramie Project. Nothing like that was evident on opening night at the Space. Yew's staging is restrained but it also is beautifully lucid.” - THE LARAMIE PROJECT, Seattle Post-Intelligencer