Thursday, November 19, 2020
How a Life-Changing Road Trip Inspired Writing Duo Melissa Li and Kit Yan to Pen a Musical
Playbill: “We were mortal enemies,” says Kit Yan of himself and Melissa Li. Yan and Li, however, are now the co-writers of the musical Interstate—a sold-out extended show at NYMF, a buzzed-about show at NAMT, and one that was preparing for a full production at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis just before the pandemic hit in March.
How do mortal enemies create a hit musical together? Well, first they make up.
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2 comments:
This is such an inspiring story. I am glad they were able to reunite to tell their story. It is always great to see minorities take their lived experiences and tell a story that has authentic representation. In our pseudo-diversity market, there is often a black person or a gay person, but these representations are often in the form of tokenism. It’s rare to have the kind of intersectional representation like that of an Asian trans person. It is a shame that this play, like many others, had their momentum abruptly ended by the pandemic, but it sounds like they have a strong fanbase that is willing to support them and will likely be there when this play returns after the pandemic is over. Hopefully the success of this work will encourage other unique and underrepresented groups to tell their stories so we can have a better realized version of diversity in the media.
This was very heartwarming and inspiring to read. I found it interesting how the two writers started as "mortal enemies" yet were able to come together to create something truly beautiful- and I feel that great art is often like this. Even further, I really admire the community they have created. Though they had sold out everywhere, I think that the true prize and reward is how they were able to redefine and confront sexual identity. Like they mentioned, they had trans teenagers and other LGBTQ+ fans who would blog about their production. Just from their roots of discovering this play through a road trip, it is a very tight-knit and safe environment they have fostered. It is also very great to see how they are still succeeding despite the pandemic. I think this has a lot to do with the strong fanbase they have created. It is from their safe and open atmosphere that they were able to achieve this, and I am also really happy to see that playbill did a spotlight on this.
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