Something that surprised me over the course of my time onstage for Ragtime was how my character morphed during each performance.  During rehearsals, and in my previous blog entry, I intentionally made my character a fierce Asian woman.  She spent a lot of time frowning sternly, and she was money/success-driven.  However, I found that persona […]

My name is Zhang Zhiying and I am an immigrant from China.  I come looking for opportunities, and I disdain Evelyn Nesbit. I am horrified that my first impression of America is a scandalous place, filled with whores and women in next to no clothing, doing nothing useful with their lives. (Though I am unwillingly […]

What I found the other day in rehearsal, our first day running blocking, was that it was hard to be an immigrant.  Aside from me and Wanda, the other girls in the immigrant chorus are all white.  So even if they have immigrant backgrounds, I’m sure they’re almost all pretty far removed from the immigrant experience. […]

Putting on Ragtime at Duke as one of the two Asians in the cast has been an interesting experience.  Doing Ragtime at Duke at all is interesting, because of what Ragtime is, and what Duke is like.  Ragtime is about race. It poses the questions, what does it mean to be black in America?  How does a black […]