Rehana Lew Mirza and Mike Lew document their first year as parents and Playwrights-in-Residence at Ma-Yi. 

Ralph Peña, Producing Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company in New York City and playwrights-in-residence Rehana Lew Mirza and Mike Lew discuss their participation in the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program.

In this installment, Mike Lew discusses the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the fraught practice of yellow face, and what equity for people of color actually looks like.

#RightsWeek post: While I think the databases may be useful for schools and small companies, at the highest level I question whether access to plays is really the rate-limiter behind getting more plays to production. Rather I think the dialogue between producers and playwrights is limited and opaque and inauthentic, leading to misspent efforts all around.