Bios

Carla Ching, Playwright

An LA native, Carla stumbled upon pan-Asian performance collective Peeling at the Asian American Writers Workshop and wrote and performed with them for three years, which she still considers her first theater training.

Her plays include TBA (2g), The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness (Ma-Yi Theater Company, dir. Daniella Topol), Dirty, Big Blind/Little Blind and Fast Company (an EST/Sloan commission; 2013 South Coast Repertory Theater Pacific Playwrights Festival; winner of the Edgerton New American Play Award) and The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up.

Her pieces have been produced or workshopped by Center Theater Group, South Coast Rep, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Lark Play Development Center, The Women’s Project, Partial Comfort, 2g, Desipina & Company, The Hegira, Red Fern Theater Company and Vampire Cowboys among others.

She’s an alumna of The Women’s Project Lab 2008-2010, the 2011/12 Lark Play Development Center Meeting of the Minds, the 2013/14 CTG Writers’ Workshop and the Ma-Yi Writers Lab.

She’s been in residence at Voice and Vision’s Envision retreat with Women’s Project, the Rockefeller Foundation and NY Stage and Film with the Lark. TBA is published in Out of Time and Place. BA, Vassar College. MFA, New School for Drama. Former Artistic Director of 2g.

Carla is currently a staff writer on USA’s Graceland.

Amy Poisson, Director

Amy Poisson is a Seattle based theatrical director and most recently directed the short film Stephen Baldwin’s Backpack. Amy has directed various projects for 14/48 and LiveGirls! as well as The Clockwork Professor for Pork Filled at TOJ, These Streets at ACT/Central Heating Lab and The Strange Misadventures of Patty at the Annex Theatre. Amy is a former Equity stage manager and worked at the Seattle Rep for five seasons. She has also managed shows at the Intiman, Empty Space, ACT and various other small theaters that have come and gone over the years. Amy was the Associate Director for Robin Hood with Allison Narver at SCT and Assistant Director on Elektra at Seattle Shakes. Upcoming projects included Blood, Water, Paint for LiveGirls! and The Tumbleweed Zephyr (the follow up to The Clockwork Professor!) Amy holds a Certificate in Directing for Stage and Screen from the UW, a BA in Theatre from Eckerd College and is currently adjunct faculty at Cornish College of the Arts.

Maggie Lee, Producer

Maggie Lee the lead sketch writer and a performer with the Pork Filled Players, Seattle’s Asian American sketch comedy group, as well as designing lights, props, and puppets for many local fringe theaters. She also writes plays that reflect her love of comedy, science fiction, and horror; her work includes H.P. Lovecraft adaptations (Open Circle Theater), the park shows Greetings from Styx and King Arthur and the Knights of the Playground (Balagan Theatre), Kindred Spirits (ReAct Theatre), 14/48, and short plays The Sunshower Bride and Paper and Ink (Live Girls! Theater). She is currently working on a series of steampunk adventure plays, including The Clockwork Professor, which was produced by Pork Filled Productions in 2013. She was a panelist for Asian American Women in Comedy at the 2011 National Asian American Theater Conference in Los Angeles, and was twice featured at ACT’s Local Writers Showcase at the REPRESENT! Multicultural Playwrights’ Festival. She is a member of the SIS Writers Group, Rain City Projects, the Sandbox Artists Collective, and an Artist in Residence at Theatre Off Jackson.

May Nguyen, Producer

May is a writer/performer with the sketch comedy group, Pork Filled Players. As well, she has written to SIS Productions for their Revealed series of installation pieces and for Infinity Box Theatre. When not on stage, May can be found behind the scenes as a stage manager and assistant stage manager at Youth Theatre Northwest. Thank you so much for coming to the show! Have a rollicking good time!

Roger Tang, Producer

Roger is a theatre producer of three-plus decades, working with such playwrights as David Henry Hwang and Philip Kan Gotanda. As a playwright, he’s written The Jade Con, Shadowed Intent, Truth and Lies and Mac ‘n Dex, plus several pieces for SIS Productions’ Revealed series of site-specifc work. As a producer, he has helmed numerous Northwest and world premieres, from Hwang’s Bondage and Yellow Face to Genny Lim’s Paper Angels to Qui Nguyen’s Living Dead in Denmark to Maggie Lee’s The Clockwork Professor. He has sat on the boards of ReACT and NWAAT (where he helped build the Theatre Off Jackson) and has presented multiple times at the National Asian American Theatre Conference. Called the “Godfather of Asian American theatre” by A. Magazine, he edits the Asian American Theatre Revue, the web’s foremost resource on Asian American theatre (www.aatrevue.com).

Cast

Mariko Kita studied voice at Peabody Conservatory and continues to write original works.  She regularly writes arrangements for Live Girls! Ladies Choir.  She has appeared locally with ReAct Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Balagan Theater, StoryBook Theater, Infinity Box Theater, Lyric Light Opera, Ghost Light Theatricals, Live Girls! Theater and has been a proud member of 14/48 bands.

Kevin Lin recently graduated from the University of Washington and currently works as a medical technologist at EvergreenHealth Medical Center. Hailing from Bothell, Washington, Kevin has performed with the UW School of Drama, UW Undergraduate Theatre Society, ReAct Theatre, SIS Productions, Infinity Box Theatre Project, Book-It Repertory Theatre, and Davenport Theatrical. This will be his first show with Pork Filled Productions and he has never been more excited!

Sara Porkalob is a Capitol Hill artist activist specializing in new works production, site specific theater and generative performance art. She attended Cornish College of the Arts’ Original Work’s program and is a director, performer and teacher. Recent acting credits include: Sheila in Artswest’s Hair and Edith in Seattle Public Theater’s Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them. Recent directing credits include:The Last Five Years at Cornish College, Deadliest Instruments at the Triple Door and Peach Tree Parables, a site specific promenade piece. You can see her original solo show Dragon Lady as part of Radial Theater's Solo Play Festival "Locally Grown" in February 2015 and in March she will be playing Lady Macbeth and Benvolio in Seattle Shakespeare's Educational Tour of Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet.

Brad Walker is always happy to play with PFP, having donned the steampunk spectacles of Prof. Seamus Pemberton in last summer’s The Clockwork Professor. Recent shows: The Fabulous Lipitones and The Matchmaker (Taproot), 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (SMT). Brad is an alumnus of the University of Washington, where he studied both Theatre and Marketing. This is Brad’s first time getting to play Chinese-American on stage; Mom, be proud (but please ignore all of the gambling and criminal activity) – a big thanks to you for supporting the arts!

Designers

Robin Macartney is a freelance scenic designer based in West Seattle. Over the course of her seven years working in  Seattle, she has worked on over seventeen shows with local theatre companies (Is she crazy?!). This will be her second time working with the Pork Filled Players, having designed for the hit show The Clockworck Professor by Maggie Lee.  Robin has had lots of contact with producers Maggie and Roger Tang through her job at the Theatre Off Jackson, a non-profit theatre located in the International district.  Robin loves seeing her theatre contacts grow and loves challenges  like Fast Company. Interested parties may also benefit from knowing that Robin has a growing prop library and plans to expand and share the wealth; recent additions include a gramophone and several vintage typewriters.