Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater & Music Theater.
House Guest (家客)
Written by Nick Rongjun Yu (喻荣军)
Translated by Sandra Chen ’24
Run Time
Approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes; no intermission.
Program Notes
Place: Shanghai
Time: Present day
Special Notes
No flash photography permitted. Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance.
Accessibility
The Drapkin Studio is an accessible venue with an assistive listening system. Learn more about access to the Drapkin Studio.
Cast
Eve Mo: Sandra Chen ’24*
Will Ma: Max Chien ’27
Ray Xia: William Li ’27
Production Team
Director: Icey Siyi Ai ’25
Stage Manager: Eddie Kong ’27
Lighting Designer: Al Potter ’27
Run Crew: Angela Cai ’27
*denotes a certificate or minor student in the Program in Theater
Faculty Advisors
Karen Emmerich, Primary Advisor
Elena Araoz, Secondary Advisor
A Note from the Project Proposer
Before college, I had zero experience with either theater or translation; today, I am a certificate student in both. This project is a culmination, consolidation, and celebration of these two creative pursuits that have unexpectedly come to shape so much of my Princeton experience.
My path to this specific play, Nick Rongjun Yu’s (喻荣军), was about as unplanned as my overall college trajectory, but it has felt somehow like coming home. The play is set in Shanghai, my mother’s hometown, and its three senior characters call to mind my own maternal grandparents. In my past visits to Shanghai, I often felt myself lost in translation, struggling to speak up in my less-than-fluent Chinese. Over the past few months, translating this play has pushed me to grapple over big ideas and small details in a language with which I’ve grown more comfortable. Now, performing this play invites me to embody a new voice and to share a story that I hold tightly in my heart.
At its core, House Guest is a play about the choices we make, and I will always be grateful for the ones I’ve made at Princeton which have led me here to this project. Thank you to all of the people who’ve chosen to join me in this journey—to my advisors, Karen Emmerich and Elena Araoz, for your generous feedback and encouragement; to my director, Icey, for your trust in me and your vision for us all; to my cast and crew, for your enthusiasm, dedication, and talent. You are all masters of this project in your own right.
— Sandra Chen ’24
Translator and Performer
Land Acknowledgement
An estimated 10 million Native Americans lived in North America before the arrival of European colonizers. Many thousands lived in Lenapehoking, the vast homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, who were the first inhabitants of what is now called eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Princeton stands on part of the ancient homeland and traditional territory of the Lenape people. In 1756, the College of New Jersey erected Nassau Hall with no recorded consultation with the Lenni-Lenape peoples.
Treaties and forced relocation dispersed Lenape-Delaware to Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We acknowledge the violence of settler colonialism and pay respect to Lenape peoples past, present, and future and their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Lenape diaspora.
For more information, see the websites of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP), Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Chair: Judith Hamera
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Director of Program in Theater: Jane Cox
Producing Artistic Director, Theater And Music Theater Season: Elena Araoz
View a full list of the Program in Theater Faculty & Guest Artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a full list of LCA staff members
The programs of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts are made possible through the generous support of many alumni and other donors. View a full list of LCA Supporters
