Caught won the 2017 Obie Award for Playwrighting. It is also the winner of the 2015 Independence Foundation Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play. It was nominated for the 2015 Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Scenic Design, Outstanding Direction, and Outstanding Overall Production of a Play. InterAct Theatre was named Best Established Theatre in 2015 by Philadelphia Magazine.
Caught, my Philadelphia theatrical debut - was three years in the making. My company, 2by4, was initially established because I was motivated to develop Chen’s script in San Francisco in 2012. We spent over a year in workshops and readings which culminated in a week-long Design Development Workshop. The play takes the audience on a disorienting journey that begins in an art gallery that goes through a complete transformation. During the workshop, I experimented with visual storytelling by establishing microenvironments and video landscapes to which the audience moved for different scenes. This was followed by a public workshop performance at the Costume Shop Theatre (second stage for San Francisco’s highly acclaimed regional theatre, ACT). After this energetically charged and successful workshop production, Caught was further developed at the Sundance Theatre Festival, and received its world premiere at InterAct Theater, Philadelphia. Much of my experience and ideas that came from developing the piece in San Francisco was well received by director, Rick Shiomi, and my design directly shaped the direction, movement, and total experience of the show. Elizabeth Frino, Lehigh Design Apprentice, served as my assistant for this professional production by model-building, attending meetings and technical rehearsals. She was instrumental in building the large scale interactive video installation sculpture, and learned first-hand how a world premiere is mounted. Caught received unprecedented critical acclaim in major Philadelphia papers andhas been produced at numerous theatres across the country and London and Off-Broadway, and has been published in its entirety in American Theatre Magazine, including three full color images of my scenery from the world premiere.