World Premiere Young Jean Lee's Theater Company THE SHIPMENT

"She offers the pleasure of brazen theatrical inventiveness."—New Yorker

Don’t miss the world premiere of a new play by one of the boldest voices in contemporary theater, created with support from our artist-in-residence program.

Playwright and director Young Jean Lee simultaneously delighted and challenged our audiences in 2007 with Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, her breakthrough production. Her provocative and hilariously satiric take on hot-button issues such as race and identity instigated spirited debate and established Lee’s as a fresh, significant, and original presence.

Now, Young Jean Lee applies her signature style and acid wit to the black experience and African American identity politics. In collaboration with an all-black cast, THE SHIPMENT takes the audience on an awkward and volatile roller-coaster ride through the absurdities and atrocities that arise whenever people start trying to talk about the black experience in America. Ludicrous, honest, and devoid of truisms, THE SHIPMENT dares to ask embarrassing questions and seek solutions to impossible problems.

THE SHIPMENT is, in the playwright’s words, ”an extremely awkward exploration of the experience of being black in America that raises pointed questions about ethnic appropriation and race relations that will leave people reeling... My work is about struggling to achieve something in the face of failure and incompetence and not-knowing. The discomfort and awkwardness involved in watching this struggle reflect the truth of my experience."

Stay after each performance to hear more about the creative vision and process of this rising young talent in post-performance discussions with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company.

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THE SHIPMENT is co-commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Kitchen. Additional support is provided by the Greenwall Foundation, Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Rockefeller MAP Foundation.

This presentation is supported by the Performing Arts Fund, a program of Arts Midwest funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art, with additional contributions from Ohio Arts Council, General Mills Foundation, and Land O’Lakes Foundation.