Kit Yan

Kit Yan is a queer, transgender, Chinese-American, award-winning poet and playwright, residing in New York.

Kit Yan

Early life

Yan was born in Enping, China and moved to Hawaii as an infant.[1] Raised on the island of Oahu until he was 18 years old, he moved to Massachusetts to attend Babson College, graduating in 2006.

Career & Early Career

Theater

Yan is a transgender Chinese American poet, playwright, and screenwriter. He is a 2019 Vivace Award winner, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, 2019 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Writer in residence, a 2019 MacDowell Colony Fellow, 2019-2020 Musical Theater Factory Makers Fellow, a 2019-2020 The Playwrights' Center Many Voices Fellow, and a 2019 National Alliance for Musical Theater (NAMT) selection for Interstate.

Yan's forthcoming works along with collaborator Melissa Li include a production of Interstate at Mixed Blood Theatre Company in March 2020, a first draft commission of Miss Step from 5th Avenue Theatre, and a commission from Keen Company for a Keen Teens one act musical. Interstate won 5 awards at the 2018 New York Musical Festival including Best Lyrics. Yan's show Queer Heartache has won 5 awards at the Chicago Fringe Festival and San Francisco Fringe Festival. Their work has been produced by the American Repertory Theater, the Smithsonian Institution, Musical Theater Factory, the New York Musical Theatre Festival, Diversionary Theater, and Dixon Place. They have been a resident with The Civilians, Mitten Lab, 5th Avenue Theatre, and the Village Theatre.

Yan founded Translab in 2018, an incubator for Transgender and Non-binary voices in the American Theater, along with MJ Kaufman and supported by WP Theater and Public Theater.

Plays

Interstate

Interstate is an Asian-American pop-rock poetry musical about Dash, a transgender spoken word performer, and his best friend Adrian, a lesbian singer-songwriter. Together they become internet-famous as an activist musical duo, and they embark on their first national tour across America. Their political and personal music touches Henry, a transgender teenage boy living in a small Kentucky town, and he finds solace in their art as he struggles with his own identity and family. Henry becomes a video blogger and documents his own gender journey. He sets out on a quest to meet his heroes in person, hoping to find answers to his own struggles. Interstate is a touching story about how two transgender people at different stages of their journey navigate love, family, masculinity, and finding a community in the era of social media.

Residencies:

Miss Step

Miss Step is a heartfelt 80s dance musical comedy featuring a transgender/non-binary (TGNB) cast, live aerobics, stunts, competition, and exercise. This diverse and exhilarating show is a classic underdog story that portrays TGNB characters as both ordinary and extraordinary people, defying all odds to sing, dance, compete, and dazzle audiences. MISS STEP is for anyone with a dream, who loves the 80s, and who has ever found family in the most unexpected places.

Residencies:

T(estosterone)

(T)estosterone follows two trans and gender non-conforming friends on a trip to Planned Parenthood as one gets on and the other gets off testosterone. Is testosterone the holy grail of (trans)masculinity, or is it just another drug? Hormones can be magical, alchemical: gel, rubbed on the chest and arms once a day, can transform a body; a weekly shot can make a life feel, finally, possible. But like any substance, access, quality, and outcome are not evenly distributed. And like any marker of identity, stories that surround it easily become oversimplified, even oppressive. T is an investigation into real trans lives and an intervention into oversimplified narratives that surround testosterone as hormone replacement therapy. Join us in the waiting room of Planned Parenthood as we follow stories that embody the diversity and complexity of real gender processes.

Residencies:

  • 2017: The Civilians R&D residency, The Syndicate First Read Series selection, Playwright's Realm fellowship Semi-finalists, Playspace table reading at the Lark, DVR Foundation Playwrights Program Finalist, 2019 Relentless Award special consideration
  • 2019: The Hub D.C. reading

Mr. Transman

Mr. Transman follows Ariel, a moody trans/non-binary person in recovery, is unknowingly entered into an alternative beauty pageant where, in order to win, they must perform a gender they're struggling to understand while competing against their most hated ex.

Residencies:

  • 2018 Translab fellowship reading

Queer Heartache

Queer Heartache is a full length poetry collection (published by TransGenre Press, 2016) adapted from Yan's award-winning one-person slam poetry theater show. Kit's poetry explores his identity as transgender, queer, Asian American from Hawaii, while asking what queer hearts and families are made of and interrogating the forces that are constantly working to break them apart.

Queer Heartache is a testament to the resilience of queer love in all its forms—between cis and trans siblings, lovers, pride parade attendees, and many more—in the face of heartbreaking barriers everywhere from the dating pool to the medical establishment. If you've ever had your heart broken, wondered how your pets self-identify, or wanted to tell someone your gender is none of their business, this book is for you. So wrap yourself in a rainbow and enjoy the ride.

Produced at The American Repertory Theater, Diversionary Theater, IRT Theater, The Brick Theater Transgender Theater Festival, San Francisco Fringe Festival, Chicago Fringe Festival, and on 8 National college tours.

Film & TV

After Earth

After Earth was written and produced by Yan and Jess X. Snow.

Synopsis

As rising sea levels threaten the loss of their motherland in Hawai’i, the Philippines, China and North America, four women fight to preserve the volcano, ocean, land and air for future generations in an immersive three-channel documentary created by a majority LGBTQIA cast and crew of queer Asian/Pacific Islander elders and youth.

Safe Among Stars

Safe Among Stars was produced and co-written by Yan and Jess X. Snow.

Synopsis

A queer Chinese-American woman struggles to tell her immigrant mother why she left school. She teleports into her own galaxy where no violence can touch her.

Poetry

See above Queer Heartache section of Plays

Poetry & Speaking Engagements

Yan's first solo slam poetry show Queer Heartache premiered at the International Chicago Fringe Theater Festival in 2015 to positive reviews and top honors receiving the "Audience Choice," "Artists' Pick," and "Spirit of Fringe" awards.

Yan was featured in a series about trans people through GLAAD in 2012, called Trans People Speak.[2]

Yan spoke at the National Equality March in 2009.[3] He has headlined at the True Colors Youth Conference, the New England People of Color Conference and the Brooklyn Museum.

Awards & Honors

Yan along with his collaborator Melissa Li are the inaugural winners of the Vivace Award for Musical Theater.

In 2015, he won three awards at the Chicago Fringe Festival: the Audience Choice, Artist's Pick, and Spirit of Fringe Awards. In 2016, Yan was awarded Best of Fringe and Volunteer's Choice awards at the 2016 San Francisco Fringe Festival.

His poetry has been reviewed in New York (magazine), Bitch (magazine), Curve (magazine), and Hyphen, as well as featured in the anthologies Flicker and Spark, Glitter and Grit, and Troubling the Line.

Yan won the first annual Mr. Transman competition in 2010.[4]

References
  1. "About Kit Yan". Retrieved 2019-09-11.
  2. "Trans People Speak: Kit Yan". Retrieved 2015-09-19.
  3. "Kit Yan". C-SPAN.org. Retrieved 2015-09-19.
  4. "My Intention Behind Art & Soul". Retrieved 2015-09-19.
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