By Diep Tran

Who doesn’t love an American family drama? A family, sitting in their living room, fighting and rediscovering each other is the bread and butter of the American theatre. Actor Jeena Yi has long loved classics like Death of a Salesman and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, even as she knew she would never be cast in those plays.

Yi is Asian American, and as she points out, “As an actor, the one lament I had was there was never a show that I could be in. If it’s about a family, you have to kind of look like the family. Often the families are white, so I could never be a member of the family unless it was specifically written in a certain way or somebody was doing a very specific take.” And an all-Asian Death of a Salesman is not exactly a frequently performed concept.

So, Yi wrote her own Korean American family drama. Jesa is currently running at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater through April 12, co-produced by Ma-Yi Theatre Company. At the same time, Yi is part of the ensemble cast in David Lindsay-Abaire’s newest play The Balusters on Broadway, where she plays the vice president of a homeowner’s association. Oh, and she’s (as of this published date) 18 weeks pregnant.

“I’m excited to tell this baby, ‘You were on Broadway when you were in utero!’” exclaims Yi one morning in rehearsals for The Balusters.

She was in sweats, looking tired yet satisfied. Jesa was opening that night, and she had gone through the biggest hurdle of the entire process: the week where she was rehearsing two shows at the same time.

To read the entire article: https://playbill.com/article/in-jesa-jeena-yi-wrote-the-asian-american-family-drama-she-always-wanted-to-be-in

Photo credit: Lia Chang