HOME / 2022-23 SEASON / WATCH ON DEMAND: THE Kung Fu Zombies SAGA
Photo by Rich Ryan
ON DEMAND: AN APOCALYPSE GONE HIP HOP
The Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior & Cannibals is available for a limited time online and on demand! Watch the world premiere through our streaming service from Aug 7 at 10 a.m. CT through Aug 13 at 2 p.m. CT.
Don’t miss the world premiere that audiences are calling “a theatrical event unlike anything I’ve seen before” and “a fantastical, bad-ass journey.”
Scroll down for more information about the show and the streaming platform. For press features and ways to explore more, head to our mainstage production page. Read through a PDF version of the playbill here.
Want to see the show live in the Twin Cities? Click here.
GENERAL INFORMATION
DATES
Aug 7 at 10 a.m. CT through Aug 13 at 2 p.m. CT
After Aug 13 at 2 p.m. CT, your video will not work even if you are in the middle of watching the show.
Updated July 31 at 4:30 p.m. CT: The video will expire 48 hours after you click on the link to watch.
The show runs approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, so please leave ample time to finish it before the streaming window closes on Aug 13.
Captions are available to toggle on or off on the video.
The Kung Fu Zombies Saga is recommended for those 16+ due to staged violence and gore, staged cannibalism, adult language, sexual harassment and grooming, and mention of trauma from the bombings. There will be strobe and flashing lights, as well as the use of prop arms.
The Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior & Cannibals brings us to a world overrun by zombies—“and these motherf— know kung fu.” In the first act, shaman warrior Arun must fight the demons inside and out as she tries to rescue her sister with the help of the Monkey King. Then in Act Two, we return to an updated Kung Fu Zombies vs. Cannibals (2013), where Lao American Sika is on a treacherous quest to release her dead parents’ ashes in her motherland. Together, they're two halves of one epic saga.
PRICE
We strive to voice the stories of the Asian American community, and in order to bring performances to those communities whose stories they tell, we are committed to making them as accessible as possible. PAY AS YOU ARE pricing asks those who routinely pay $45 for theater tickets to choose to pay that amount; it is the actual fair market value of the ticket. If an audience member needs to pay less, they can choose to pay less—as little as $10 per ticket.
STREAMING INFORMATION
The Kung Fu Zombies Saga will be available to stream on demand through our Patron Manager platform. Click HERE to learn more about our streaming platform and the virtual stage.
MEET THE CAST
MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT
SAYMOUKDA DUANGPHOUXAY VONGSAY (she/her) is a Lao American playwright. CNN’s United Shades of America host W. Kamau Bell called her work “revolutionary.” Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recognized her and others with a Lao Artists Heritage Month Proclamation. She received an Ordway Center for Performing Arts Sally Award for Initiative for “strategic leadership undertaken by an individual ... that will have a significant impact on strengthening Minnesota’s artistic/cultural community.” Her work has been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Theater Mu, Theater Unbound, and elsewhere. Saymoukda is currently a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, a Mellon Foundation playwright in residence, a Jerome Foundation fellow in playwriting, a Center for Cultural Power fellow, and a recent writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook.
“In the Kung Fu Zombie-verse, the zombies represent unconsciousness. They represent things that come back and haunt you. And to me, they represent the bombs that were dropped during the Vietnam War that did not explode—this period of nine years where U.S. pilots just dropped bombs on Laos in this secret, proxy war. I thought that this metaphor would be a good way to get people to talk about this legacy,” Saymoukda says. “This play was written for people who have a relationship to ancestral worship, shamanism, Buddhism, spirits, ghosts, and pasts that haunt them. This is a play written with Laotians in mind.”
MEET THE DIRECTOR
LILY TUNG CRYSTAL (she/her) is grateful to be collaborating with such talented and generous artists. In the Twin Cities, she has directed Jiehae Park’s peerless at Mu, MN Opera’s Art is a Verb (Harrison Rivers, librettist), Mu’s live film-theater production of Susan Soon He Stanton’s Today Is My Birthday, and the Jungle Theater and Mu co-production of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band. Other shows include David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish and Flower Drum Song at Palo Alto Players, and the world premiere of Leah Nanako Winkler’s Two Mile Hollow at Ferocious Lotus. For all three shows, she was named a Theatre Bay Area Award Finalist for Outstanding Direction. As an actor/singer, Lily has performed at theaters across the country, including Cal Shakes, Crowded Fire, Magic Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, New World Stages, Playwrights’ Center, Portland Center Stage, SF Playhouse, and Syracuse Stage. She is a YBCA 100 honoree, named by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as a "creative pioneer making the provocations that will shape the future of culture." | lilytungcrystal.com
CREATIVE TEAM
KT SHORB
Associate Director
KENJI SHOEMAKER*
Stage Manager
JAY CLAIRE
Production Manager
DJ KOOL AKIEM
DJ/Composer/Sound Designer
ALLEN MALICSI
Fight Choreographer
MINA KINUKAWA
Set Designer
MARIKO DE MONTALTE
Costume Designer
KARIN OLSON
Lighting Designer
MIKO SIMMONS
Projections Designer
URSULA BOWDEN
Properties Designer
MIRANDA SHUNKWILER*
Asst. Stage Manager
C. “MEAKS” MEAKER
Dramaturg
SAENGMANY RATSABOUT
Cultural Consultant
LAURA FRIES
Asst. Fight Choreo.
AUSTIN STIERS
Technical Director
RAY STEVESON
Head Electrician
MICHAEL HAAS
Scenic Fellow
BOO MCCALEB
Proj. & Anim. Fellow
KYRA SHIZUKA MURAMOTO
Directing Intern
JESSICA NGUYEN
Directing Intern
SOPHIE PEYTON
Intimacy Coordinator
COLE TUNG-CRYSTAL
Projections Apprentice
EVAN PETERSON
Luminary House Technician
*denotes member of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.
Special Thanks
Special thanks to Equity and SAG-AFTRA for their part in making The Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior & Cannibals available to stream on demand.
This play is made possible in part by support from Playwrights’ Center and the Mellon Foundation.
This play is media sponsored by KFAI.