The Marsh Presents Kenny Yun’s Lettucetown Lies
Kenny Yun’s new one-man show, “Lettucetown Lies” plays Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm from June 5 – June 27, 2009 (press opening June 13), in The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia Street in San Francisco. For tickets, the public may call Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org.
San Francisco, CA, April 26, 2009 --(PR.com)-- “One of the most extraordinary solo artists I've ever witnessed onstage. Brilliant and painfully funny. Awesome.” – Ann Randolph
“Funny…terrific”– SF Bay Times
The Marsh is pleased to present Kenny Yun’s new one-man show, “Lettucetown Lies,” a story about his tumultuous coming of age as the only gay and Asian teenager in Salinas in the eighties. Adolescence in Lettucetown! It's fun, it's lies, it’s blowing up a field of lettuce, it’s dancing to Donna Summer records and sneaking to the high school bathroom to buy drugs (and those “elicit” Donna Summer records).
The show plays Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm from June 5 – June 27, 2009 (press opening June 13), in The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia Street in San Francisco. For tickets, the public may call Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org.
Yun moved from Pacific Grove to an all-white section of Salinas when he was ten years old and felt as if he had been banished from the Garden of Eden. His parents wanted him to be a doctor but he was no good at math preferring art, literature and pictures of the Greek gods. His reading fed a rich fantasy life - he loved to project himself into myth, sublimating the ups and downs of his teenage years by fantasizing about Lucifer or, in better moments, Perseus, his hero. In one memorable scene, and with the aid of a pink shawl, he turns himself into a female shaman, swept out to sea after falling tragically in love with the king’s son.
Through his friends, Yun discovered that he was not the only one with secrets. If he had to conceal the fact that he was attracted to the same boy as his best friend, Michelle, she, in turn, was privately conflicted about how promiscuous she really wanted to be, especially with the boy Yun fancied. And the boy had a dilemma of his own to hide. Even so, secrets or not, they were each other’s life line, talking to each other for hours every day.
Yun is a whimsical and exotic performer, whose singular style reflects the unique nature of both his upbringing and his story. As would be expected from an award-winning stand-up comic, parts of the play are very funny. But others are heartrending. There is a dangerous poignancy to living a lie at the best of times, but perhaps most especially in high school. Yun learns to fend off all sorts of racial and gender expectations from both his peers and his family, and to understand his friends’ similar need to navigate through their own web of half truths. Ironically enough, it is at a summer camp in Korea that he experiences for the first time the delicious and platonic peace of just being himself.
“Lettucetown Lies,” developed in collaboration with David Ford, is Kenny Yun’s first solo-show. Previously, he has appeared in film shorts and plays, including local productions of Twelfth Night, The Cherry Orchard, and The Tempest. He also performs standup comedy all over the Bay Area, and was a winner of the Russian River Comedy Competition. Yun studied acting at Studio ACT and the Berkeley Repertory Theater and has a degree in English Literature from UC Berkeley.
For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/people/Kenny-Yun/729717795 or http://www.kennyyun.com
For Calendar Editors
When: June 5 – June 27, 2009
Press Opening: June 13
Showtimes: Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm
Where: The Marsh Studio Theater
1074, Valencia Street (between 21st and 22nd Streets), San Francisco
Tickets: $15 - $50 Sliding Scale
For tickets, call 800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org
For more information, call 415-826-5750 or visit The Marsh website at www.themarsh.org
###
“Funny…terrific”– SF Bay Times
The Marsh is pleased to present Kenny Yun’s new one-man show, “Lettucetown Lies,” a story about his tumultuous coming of age as the only gay and Asian teenager in Salinas in the eighties. Adolescence in Lettucetown! It's fun, it's lies, it’s blowing up a field of lettuce, it’s dancing to Donna Summer records and sneaking to the high school bathroom to buy drugs (and those “elicit” Donna Summer records).
The show plays Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm from June 5 – June 27, 2009 (press opening June 13), in The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia Street in San Francisco. For tickets, the public may call Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org.
Yun moved from Pacific Grove to an all-white section of Salinas when he was ten years old and felt as if he had been banished from the Garden of Eden. His parents wanted him to be a doctor but he was no good at math preferring art, literature and pictures of the Greek gods. His reading fed a rich fantasy life - he loved to project himself into myth, sublimating the ups and downs of his teenage years by fantasizing about Lucifer or, in better moments, Perseus, his hero. In one memorable scene, and with the aid of a pink shawl, he turns himself into a female shaman, swept out to sea after falling tragically in love with the king’s son.
Through his friends, Yun discovered that he was not the only one with secrets. If he had to conceal the fact that he was attracted to the same boy as his best friend, Michelle, she, in turn, was privately conflicted about how promiscuous she really wanted to be, especially with the boy Yun fancied. And the boy had a dilemma of his own to hide. Even so, secrets or not, they were each other’s life line, talking to each other for hours every day.
Yun is a whimsical and exotic performer, whose singular style reflects the unique nature of both his upbringing and his story. As would be expected from an award-winning stand-up comic, parts of the play are very funny. But others are heartrending. There is a dangerous poignancy to living a lie at the best of times, but perhaps most especially in high school. Yun learns to fend off all sorts of racial and gender expectations from both his peers and his family, and to understand his friends’ similar need to navigate through their own web of half truths. Ironically enough, it is at a summer camp in Korea that he experiences for the first time the delicious and platonic peace of just being himself.
“Lettucetown Lies,” developed in collaboration with David Ford, is Kenny Yun’s first solo-show. Previously, he has appeared in film shorts and plays, including local productions of Twelfth Night, The Cherry Orchard, and The Tempest. He also performs standup comedy all over the Bay Area, and was a winner of the Russian River Comedy Competition. Yun studied acting at Studio ACT and the Berkeley Repertory Theater and has a degree in English Literature from UC Berkeley.
For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/people/Kenny-Yun/729717795 or http://www.kennyyun.com
For Calendar Editors
When: June 5 – June 27, 2009
Press Opening: June 13
Showtimes: Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm
Where: The Marsh Studio Theater
1074, Valencia Street (between 21st and 22nd Streets), San Francisco
Tickets: $15 - $50 Sliding Scale
For tickets, call 800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org
For more information, call 415-826-5750 or visit The Marsh website at www.themarsh.org
###
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The Marsh
Diana Rathbone
415-271-3256
www.themarsh.org
Diana Rathbone
415-271-3256
www.themarsh.org
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