East Side Story

Artistic Director of Hypokrit Theatre Company, an O'Neill and Lincoln Center Directing Fellow, Women's Project Lab (Director), Arpita's resume is endless. I have the extreme pleasure of working with Arpita on my musical, The Golden Threshold, and we sat down to dig deep into her story of coming to America, living in New York and how she's flourishing as a South Asian director. Our

In just a month, we've surpassed 1000 downloads of our podcast. Thank you for supporting this endeavor! Back to regularly scheduled programming, Part 2 uncovers Eddy's experience being Asian, my philosophy of conversation vs. confrontation, his time at Hamilton and more. Eddy is not only a light on and off stage, he's also one of the nicest humans in New York City. I'm glad to get

Making his Broadway debut through auditions in open calls without an agent, Eddy Lee is the success story everyone should know. Since the interview is a little longer than usual, I have split up the episode in two. Part 1 delves into Eddy's life growing up, how he feels like he has three mothers (his mother, his sister and grandmother who all raised him), to pursuing his passion in

We're up in Salem, CT doing a workshop of my new musical, The Golden Threshold. Since episodes are being delayed, here's another bonus episode with some of the cast, Meetu Chilana and Sorab Wadia. Full transcript will be available soon. IG: @eastsidestorypod / @cheeyangmusic / @meetuchilana / @sorabwadia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're up in Salem, CT doing a workshop of my new musical, The Golden Threshold. And since episodes are being delayed, here's a bonus episode with not one, but three cast members of the musical. Kuhoo Verma, who appeared in the first episode of the series, returns with Kimberly Chatterjee and Jamen Nanthakumar. Full transcript will be available soon. IG: @eastsidestorypod / @cheeyan

Grappling with Otherness "Don't ever forget, you will be thought of as an other." - Cynthia Meng Within a year of freelancing, Cynthia has worked in rooms for musicals in-development on Broadway, Off-Broadway and out-of-town tryouts. What is her secret? Does it only have to do with luck, like she puts it? Or is it more? I believe there's certainly more to that and we investigate th

Am I American Enough? "When I'm speaking to my mom, I literally don't have the vocabulary to express the depth of my emotion to her." - David Park Having not been back to Korea in over 17 years, David has always identified as American. But when faced with the world telling him that he's a "flavored American" as he would say, how does that affect his outlook on life and his journey

Embracing Her Indianness "It was a huge transition going from hating myself and hating my Indianness and finding out that in the process of white-washing myself, I was erasing my parents' existence in my life." - Kuhoo Verma From graduating NYU, to booking a movie, to starring Off-Broadway and working on multiple Broadway-bound workshops, Kuhoo Verma is a force to be reckoned with.

Subverting Eurocentric Theatre "Am I entering a field that doesn't have me in its legacy?" - Desdemona Chiang Being an only-child shaped the lives of both Cheeyang and Desdemona. They connected over their shared over-achieving nature, big identity questions as theater artists, and their different views on mortality. In This Episode, You Will Learn: How Desdemona grew up as an immig

Highlights from the first 3 episodes of the season. Each week, Cheeyang sits down with an Asian or Asian-American artist working in the New York Theatre scene and excavates their life story — how they grew up, as well as projects they've worked on and upcoming work that we should anticipate. Guests (in order of appearance): 1: Kuhoo Verma (Octet); 2: Desdemona Chiang (2019 Prince