Artwork by Nina Bhattacharya

Directed by Tianding He, SKINLESS reimagines the ancient Chinese legend The White Snake as a queer, gender-bending modern fairy tale. 

Pricing : Free, suggested donation $10

Performance Dates:

Friday, November 17, 2023 - 7:00 pm

Saturday, November 18, 2023 - 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm

Two snake demons, White and Green, come to Earth to experience being human. White transforms into a human and immediately falls passionately in love, but Green cannot successfully become human. Instead, Green’s soul gets separated from their body, and they are cursed to inhabit different human and non-human bodies. In each new form that Green takes, they chase both White and the recognition of their own carnal desire. Green’s feelings for White become blurred through these experiments with embodiment, and Green gets closer to their true self, which is a self that perhaps does not align with any particular body at all. 

Blending text with music and projection, this play creates a dynamic visual world where the crossing of boundaries between species, genders, and sexualities, takes place through inner and outer transformation.

Playful and mysterious, SKINLESS examines the fluid and relative nature of identity. It shows the pitfalls and joys of being perceived or not perceived, and ultimately, is a queer coming-of-age story that’s also about the power of reinvention.

Creative Team
Playwright: Liqing Xu (they/she)
Director: Tianding He (she/her)
Stage Manager: Sarah O’Neill (she/her)
Dramaturg: Annie Jin Wang (she/her)
Scenic and Puppet Design: Yolanda Yuanlu Peng (she/her)
Production Puppet Design: Sean Devare (he/him)
Sound Design: JK Wong (he/him)
Lighting Design: Ashley Yung (she/her)
Costume Design: Sandra Zhihan Jia (she/her)
Sound Engineer: Vyren Grey (they/them)
Projection Operator: Sunny Xia (she/her)
Producers: Alison Qu (she/they), Sarah Shin (she/her), + Ashley Yung (she/her)

Cast:
White: Sharifa Yasmin (she/her)
Green: Jenine Jacinto (they/them)
Ash: Jupiter Le (he/him)
Mogwai: Michael Blunt (they/he)

About Found in Translation:

Found in Translation is a collaboration between Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston (AATAB), CHUANG Stage, and Pao Arts Center. Established in 2021, Found in Translation celebrates the power and complexities of being multilingual, immigrants, or identifying as Asian American in Greater Boston through theatre.

About the Artists

Liqing Xu (Playwright)

Liqing Xu is a playwright and screenwriter. Their work has been developed/presented/ supported by Theater Mu, Second Stage, the María Irene Fornés Institute Writers Workshop, The Orchard Project, the Sewanee Writers' Conference (as a Walter E. Dakin Fellow),  Breaking the Binary Festival, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, among others. They are a proud inaugural member of the Mu Tang Clan. Currently, she is a 2023-2025 Many Voices Fellow at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. BFA: NYU, Film and Television. MFA: Hunter College, Playwriting. Born and raised in Northern California, they are often between Los Angeles and New York.

Tianding He (Director)

Tianding He, originally from China, is an experimental theatre director, playwright, multidisciplinary artist, and arts leader based in New York City. She is the founding artistic director of B·O·N·D International Virtual Performance Festival, an arts leader of NYFA’s Incubator for Arts & Culture Leaders of Color, and a SDC associate member. Her work, an authentic exploration of societal phenomena, is a testament to her dedication to unveiling lesser-known realities. She was a resident artist of Object Movement Residency, Orchard Project Performance Lab, Dumbo Six Foot Platform, and Observership recipient of Stage Director and Choreographer Foundation and Green Theatre Grant winner. She received her first MA in Performance Studies from NYU, a second master’s degree in Theatre of Hunter College, and PhD from UC Irvine and UC San Diego.

Sharifa Yasmin (WHITE)

Sharifa Yasmin (she/her) is a trans Arab-American director, actor, playwright and intimacy coordinator. She has completed directing fellowships with The Drama League, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Manhattan Theatre Club, and was a Eugene O’Neill national directing fellow. Yasmin’s playwriting focuses on the intersection of Queer and Arab identities. Her plays have been published in Overheard, a collection of monologues by and for TNB2S+ artist and The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.

Jenine Florence Jacinto (GREEN)

Jenine Florence Jacinto (they/them) is a nonbinary California raised Filipino-Chinese American storyteller now turned New England native. When not acting on stage or rolling dice for their next session you can find them crocheting or reading a comic book. Recent credits include: Middleton Heights by Hortense Gerardo, Beyond the Furthest Stars with 1 Up Podcast Network, Swan by Sophie Kim, and Of Kith and Pen with queeRPG.

Jupiter Lê (ASH)

Jupiter Lê (he/him) is a queer transmasculine Vietnamese-American theatre-maker, a child of immigrants born, raised, and based on the lands of the Massachusett people, known as Boston, MA. Education: BA in Theatre and Cultural Anthropology (Northeastern University). Recent credits: ‘SWAN’ (Moonbox Productions), ‘IN THE CAMPS: A REFUGEE MUSICAL’ (reading w/ HowlRound Theatre Commons), ‘ISABEL (reading w/ NAATCO & Long Wharf Theatre), ‘Interstate’ (East West Players).

Michael J. Blunt (MOGWAI)

Michael J. Blunt (they/he) is a nonbinary actor based on the North Shore. They are so excited to be taking on such a mystical and wonderful story! Michael loves being a part of and developing new works. They have been involved in developing several new plays throughout Boston, the most recent being Legion Theatre Project's production of "Break, Break" by Erin Lerch. Thank you to this wonderful team for allowing me to play and create. And thank you to Tyler for always supporting my crazy theatre dreams!

About the Partners

CHUANG Stage is the first Mandarin-English bilingual, bicultural theatre company nationwide, cultivating joyful and challenging Asian American stories that pioneer a new activism in the arts.

Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston is a social collective that empowers and connects Pan-Asian theatre artists in the Greater Boston area.

The Found in Translation Series is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation.

Contact : Ashley Yung