West Seattle has something increasingly rare – its own playhouse. Your next chance to take advantage of that: ArtsWest (4711 California SW) is about to launch its new season, with the first play “The Chinese Lady” opening next week – here are the details:
ArtsWest and Yun Theatre present THE CHINESE LADY by Lloyd Suh, directed by Zenaida Rose Smith and Christie Zhao. The cast features Zoe Ding and Sebastian Wang. THE CHINESE LADY performs at ArtsWest from September 17th to October 11th, 2026. Tickets are available online at artswest.org or by phone at (206) 938.0963.
THE CHINESE LADY inspired by the story of Afong Moy, a Chinese woman displayed as a living exhibit in 1800s America. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she is 14 years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou, China in 1834. Told in first person from her point of view, she holds nothing back as she recounts a half-century of performing her culture to curious onlookers. Afong shows them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Her dreams and aspirations shift with the passing of time as she discovers what it means to reclaim her story. THE CHINESE LADY is a funny, heartbreaking, and devastatingly contemporary portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.
“The play feels very present now — not even parallel,” reflects co-director and founding artistic director of Yun Theatre, Christie Zhao, “Chinamaxxing has been trending on TikTok, where China suddenly becomes fashionable and desirable through very clear, consumable images — tai chi, tea, public transportation, certain aesthetics. It can feel almost like browsing a shiny display store. The image of China can change very quickly, while Chinese people can still be stereotyped or excluded. More visibility does not necessarily lead to more understanding; it can also create more projection. We see people and cultures more than ever through media, but that doesn’t mean the distance between us has actually gotten smaller.”
The production’s unique form creates a bridge from the past to the present. Co-director Zenaida Rose Smith shares, “This play is chiefly concerned with the relationship between performer and the audience as a means to activate the latter. Performance is a deeply powerful tool of persuasion because it engages audiences’ empathy and imagination. A well-written, well-staged play can upend and transform audience assumptions about unwieldy ideas like truth, family, race, exotification, and otherness.”
THE CHINESE LADY is the first co-production between ArtsWest and Yun Theatre. Yun Theatre is a bicultural, experimental theatre company that challenges traditional norms and confronts social and political issues affecting marginalized communities. Their productions reflect the intersection of Chinese and American ideologies and aim to spark dialogue and contribute to positive change and social justice. Beyond productions, Yun offers multilingual theatre education, artist development, readings, and community programs that make theatre-making more accessible to immigrant communities and support artists and audiences in participating in culture in their own languages.
THE CHINESE LADY kicks off ArtsWest’s 2026 – 2027 season titled A VISIBLE EXISTENCE. In a moment when so much of our world feels uncertain and disconnected, A VISIBLE EXISTENCE asks a simple but urgent question: how can art reveal the hidden worlds we carry inside? In each of the five productions this season, artists, dreamers, outsiders, and communities struggle to connect, to create, and to understand themselves and one another through art, memory, music, and imagination. THE CHINESE LADY explores what happens when cultural identity is put on display as art to be consumed, and one woman’s struggle to express and define herself on her own terms.
ArtsWest will present THE CHINESE LADY Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Saturday through Sunday at 3 pm September 17 – October 11, 2026.
Tickets are still available for the pay-what-you-can preview September 16, too