Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

Biography

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is a Chinese-American playwright, born in the U.S., though she has also lived in Okinawa, Japan, Beijing, China, and Taipei. Her plays include Lidless, 410 [Gone], The World of Extreme Happiness, Snow in Midsummer, and The King of Hell’s Palace. Her plays have been produced both nationally and internationally at theaters including The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Hampstead Theatre, The National Theatre, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Manhattan Theater Club, The Goodman Theater, and the Rorschach Theater. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology from Brown University in 2005 and a certificate in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. She received her Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from the James A. Michener Center at UT Austin. Cowhig has won the Wasserstein Prize, The Yale Drama Series Award, The Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the David A. Callichio Award, the Keene Prize for Literature, and the U.S. Artist Fellowship Award.

Career Highlight

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s most recent play, The King of Hell’s Palace, held its world premiere at the Hampstead Theatre in London in 2019, running from September 5th to October 12th. It was met with critical acclaim, including a four star review from The Telegraph, which praises the importance of the play’s subject matter and the emotional intensity of the performance.

The World of Extreme Happiness

  • Breakdown:
    • 3M Asian-American, 3W Asian-American
  • Synopsis:
    • When Sunny is born in rural China, she is thrown into a bucket of pig slop to die because she is a girl. However, she is rescued and raised by her father, alongside her brother, Pete, who is two years younger. When Sunny turns fourteen, she moves to Shenzhen, an industrial city, where she works in misery at one of the many factories. Later, when she is eighteen, she meets Ming Ming, a woman only a few years older than her, who introduces her to the world of self-improvement. Sunny is led to believe that through self-confidence and hard work, she can achieve her wildest dreams. She uses this newfound motivation to land a job as a speaker at the premiere of a propaganda documentary meant to brush recent worker suicides under the rug. However, she sees through the façade promoted by the executives behind the documentary after she talks to her wise elders and witnesses the suffering of Ming Ming and Pete. She elects instead to give a speech urging Chinese citizens to rise up in protest and change the system that holds them down. Because of this act of defiance, she is tortured and reduced to a barely functional shell of her former self. Pete, who has gotten a job at the hospital she lives in, decides to ultimately kill her, to put her out of her misery, finally freeing her from the oppressive system she was trapped in.
  • Development/Production History:
    • Originally commissioned and developed by South Coast Repertory Theatre
    • A developmental production was held by the National Theatre in London in 2013.
    • The world premiere was produced by Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2014.
  • Photos:
The World of Extreme Happiness, Goodman Theatre, 2017
The World of Extreme Happiness, Goodman Theatre, 2017
The World of Extreme Happiness, Goodman Theatre, 2017
  • Plays
    • Lidless (2012)
    • 410[Gone] (2014)
    • The World of Extreme Happiness (2014)
    • Snow in Midsummer (2018)
    • The King of Hell’s Palace (2019)

Reflection on Contribution to Anti-Racist Theatre

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is a playwright who aims to turn an unflinching eye towards the problems found in society, specifically those found in China. She does not shy away from gruesome or depressing subject matter, as evidenced by her shockingly descriptive scenes of suicide and murder and their unfortunately accurate reflections of modern society. In her play, The World of Extreme Happiness, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig covers such important issues as the one-child policy in China, sweatshop suicides, the anti-suicide pacts that were created in response, and the corruption rampant in Chinese corporations and the government. By highlighting these issues and presenting them on stage, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is bringing the world’s attention to problems previously swept under the rug. It may be her hope that in doing so, people may call for action, governments may step in, and things may change for the better. There are serious problems facing the people of China, and as a Chinese-American playwright, she is giving those people a voice in the English-speaking theater world. Anti-racist theater is theater that seeks to recognize and call out oppression and injustice that affects people of color across the globe. Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig tells stories of Chinese citizens struggling with poverty, oppression, and injustice, but, more importantly, she tells stories of people suffering. In that sense, she is one of the most compelling anti-racist playwrights at work today.

Compiled by Greyson Hines, Film Major, Graduated 2022.