Date: Thursday, May 29 | Time: 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street
In celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) warmly invites you to a special conversation with award-winning author and screenwriter Charles Yu, moderated by Nina Zoie Lam—theatre director, dramaturg, and co-founder of the National Asian Artists Project.
Charles Yu will explore the intersections of screenwriting, representation, and identity in American culture, offering thoughtful insights on storytelling through the lens of the Asian American experience. He will discuss his critically acclaimed novel Interior Chinatown, its recent adaptation for Hulu, and his expansive career spanning literature, television, and beyond.
This hybrid event will be held in person at MOCA, with Charles Yu joining live virtually from Los Angeles. All attendees will receive a FREE copy of Interior Chinatown, winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.
As part of the 2024-25 NEA Big Read initiative and centered around the theme Where We Live, MOCA has been hosting a series of free, multidisciplinary public programs including talks and community events with artists, performers, and scholars. NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
About Charles Yu
Charles Yu is the author of four books, including Interior Chinatown (the winner of the 2020 National Book Award for fiction), and the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (a New York Times Notable Book and a Time magazine best book of the year). He received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and was nominated for two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work on the HBO series, Westworld. The televised adaptation of Interior Chinatown was released on Hulu in 2024 with Yu as the creator and showrunner. He has also written for shows on FX, AMC, and HBO. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired, among other publications. Together with TaiwaneseAmerican.org, he established the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Writing Prizes, in honor of his parents.
About Nina Zoie Lam
Nina Zoie Lam is a New York-based theatre director, dramaturg, and performing arts educator. A former modern dancer, she trained at the Martha Graham School of Dance, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, José Limón, and the Mary Anthony Dance Institute. Nina made her international debut as a dancer with Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and her Broadway debut in the original company of Miss Saigon. After 20 years of performing and touring, she co-founded the National Asian Artists Project (NAAP), a nonprofit theater company dedicated to showcasing the work of Asian and Asian American writers and performers while nurturing the next generation of talent through performance and training opportunities. During this time, Nina transitioned into directing and has since developed a diverse body of work spanning new play readings, devised storytelling, dance theatre, site-specific works, and musicals. She is recognized for her improvisatory (when appropriate), playful approach to storytelling, informed by her unique perspective as a first-generation Asian American woman. Her work often focuses on global, multicultural, and multilingual narratives. Select directing and associate directing credits include: The King and I (U.S. national tour), Bombay Dreams (U.S. and Canadian tour), Cinderella (New York City Opera at Lincoln Center), Miss Saigon (Paper Mill Playhouse), Musical Theatre Factory, Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, The Tank/Leviathan Lab, A Festival of Plays (Museum of Jewish Heritage), NuWorks Festival (Pan Asian Repertory), MoCA Performs (Museum of Chinese in America). Nina holds a BA from Brown University and postgraduate training from the Sanford Meisner Center (NYC). She has also served as a guest director for NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Program and Berklee College of Music’s MFA Graduate Program in NYC.