Sarah Shin Directs The Chinese Lady

Powerhouse performing artist Sarah Shin is a multi-talented creative whose work as an actor and director has taken her across the country. She now brings her directing talent to Stages Houston for this season’s production of Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady. Afong Moy, the play’s titular character, was brought to the U.S. by the Carnes brothers in 1834 to promote their import goods.

At 14 years of age (or 18 in some historical records), Afong Moy was, for many Americans, their first experience with the exotic other, while displaying her bound feet and advertising the Chinese decorative goods that were available for sale after the show. Though accounts exist of audiences’ first reflections on seeing her show, the historical record is silent of Afong Moy’s own personal narratives. As is the case in unearthing many women’s histories, we are left to fill in the gaps of her story—from consumer goods exhibitor, to New Jersey public poorhouse, to sideshow act for PT Barnum—in the few short decades before America passed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, its first race-based restrictive immigration law.

Suh’s play is timely in its themes of stereotyping, spectacle, and voyeurism. The audience, there to see Afong Moy’s performance of ethnicity, is invited through her words not to appraise her as a foreign import good, but to see her as a living, breathing person. The play blurs the lens between viewer and subject, giving its lead the chance to speak for herself. She questions what it means to be perceived, consumed, and commodified in this new place, and ultimately asks for understanding from her American audience.

Having worked on this play previously, what drew you to this project at Stages?

Miranda Cornell, who previously directed [Lloyd Suh’s] The Heart Sellers at Stages last year, is a cohort mate and colleague who embodies the spirit of AAPI hard-working creatives. She passed the torch to me. After talking with [Stages Artistic Director] Derek Charles Livingston, I got really excited about how community-oriented Stages is…. They chose this play, with its many different ideas, sharing truths of Asian American history and also celebrating Houston’s Asian community. That was so in line with what I love to do, as an artist, and in any space. I’ve also never been to Houston before, and getting to see how different people, different audiences would respond to this play was interesting to me.

Any fun discoveries you’ve made this go-around?

I knew from the beginning that this production was going to be set in the round, and the last time I worked on this play it was a proscenium stage, so I also felt like it was a completely different show. In a proscenium, it’s akin to a single camera view, and that’s my angle. Whereas in the round, there’s no hiding for the actors. And because we have two levels of audience banks, it feels like an arena, or gladiator ring. It’s a fight! In the round, when our characters share a secret, they also share it with the audience…. The last time I worked on The Chinese Lady was four years ago, pretty fresh out of the pandemic. And I feel like so much has happened between 2022 and 2026, as a country, globally…. What does Afong Moy have to say to us now?

What do you think this play tells us about the ways that we can get to know one another?

You get to see Afong Moy’s perspective. You become her audience and perhaps imagine what people during her time might have felt or thought. And over time, you understand more about what it was like for her or for Atung, her translator. I’ve been thinking, too, about characters that we don’t see—the Carnes brothers or PT Barnum—who put her in this position and then discarded her. Or her parents and what they were going through that led her to this point. Realizing the masks that maybe we all wear. Cultural identifiers and things that we are proud of can as much be something that we feel pride in, as they can sometimes contain some shame because of the world we live in. There’s something about acknowledging that mask, and having the power and agency to define what that mask is for us, and whether we want to wear it or not.

The Chinese Lady shows Afong Moy attempting to bridge the divide between her and audiences who have come to see her, and identifying some of the stereotypes they may have come to expect. How do you think the play encounters and subverts the White gaze?

Great question. It really starts with acknowledging and naming it. What the White gaze does specifically is make her feel not human. It makes her feel like an object, or an animal in a cage, or a museum exhibition…. When I think about stereotyping, I ask if it’s coming from a place of exotification or fascination. I feel it’s one thing to have curiosity, which leads to connection and sharing, but when that curiosity is turned into trying to take something or subjugating, or if it widens the distance between us, we have to remember we are equally human.

Less than 50 years after Afong Moy appeared in the U.S., the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese from entering the country and restricted what types of work they could do. What lessons do we still think will ring true about that today?

Perhaps there’s a response to dehumanizing uses of power. After seeing this play, as you’re consuming content, what are the things that are being said, and what are things that are being hidden? What is something that might be distracting us from the bigger picture? And also, just because you’re discovering something doesn’t mean that you’ve discovered it for all people. It might just happen to be new to you, but in actuality, there is a whole long history behind it. So rather than Christopher Columbus-ing things, yeah, let’s not.

March is Women’s History Month. When the movement towards women’s empowerment and gender equality feels slow, what keeps you going?

Coming back to community and re-grounding myself with people that I trust, with my friends of all gender expressions and sexual identities that understand the systems and framework of patriarchy, where we can name it and talk through it. And eat together! Laugh together! And still find joy and rest. Even if I’m not always able to attend a protest or I forget to call my representatives, at least in the rooms and spaces that I am in, I want us to be able to talk about those things. As artists, it’s part of what we do to provide entertainment. But there’s such an opportunity for education and learning as we play.

Which female leaders have you found most inspiring?

Oh wow, so many. In leading up to this show. I’ve been thinking a lot of [Chinese-American author and philosopher; Black Power and civil rights activist] Grace Lee Boggs. She has so many great quotes. Two that are sticking with me now: “A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind” and “Love isn’t about what we did yesterday; it’s about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after.”

What is a project or moment in your journey that’s left a remarkable imprint on you?

The Gift Project was… a love letter, community-centered music composition by [activist, performer, and transcestor] Diana Oh, through All For One Theatre. I had the role of ‘Love Nurse,’ aka Associate Director. Diana had the idea, coming out of COVID, to meet elders from marginalized identities who had overcome incredible obstacles and lived astonishing lives. After the interview, Diana would retreat to write an original song for each person, and then present it to them, played by a live band. It was magical, healing, and uplifting. I loved telling those hidden stories, and it’s a big part of my artistic practice.

I’m going to pose a question which I’m borrowing from Adam at National Queer Theater: given an unlimited budget, what would be your dream season of shows?

Quantum Medea, by Sung Rno, for sure. It’s a play cycle, beginning with wAve and flowing into pArticle, about Korean power growing, a woman displaced in the West, her family past and present, all through the lens of the Medea myth. In this retelling, Medea is a Korean immigrant, and I’m creatively invested in her journey as this mythological woman, navigating family, change, and identity. No one steal this, please. I really want to do this: Twelfth Night, but it’s Bling Empire and Crazy Rich Asians. I believe this play is about joy and music. But also about class and wealth. It would just be very fun, and also be another space for Asian people to take on classical texts. Finally, and more as a joke, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but everyone is Asian, except for Marcy Park.

Sarah is currently developing her solo-ish project “Dolsaem” as a songwriter, and most recently wrapped the 40th Season of New York Stage and Film as Artist-in-Residence and the 2025 Pfaelzer Award Recipient. She also co-founded the social collectives Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston and Queer Asian Babes, uplifting the culture and community that have supported her creative work and journey. Sarah is a Zoe Rising, Rumi Sun, Mira Moon.

WHAT: The Chinese Lady
WHEN: Feb 27–Mar 22
WHERE: Stages Houston
Info: stageshouston.com/