In STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, when Ed and his three adult sons come together to celebrate Christmas, they enjoy cheerful trash-talking, pranks, and takeout Chinese. Then they confront a problem that even being a happy family can’t solve: when identity matters, and privilege is problematic, what is the value of being a straight white man?
Written and Directed by Young Jean Lee
Produced by Aaron Rosenblum
University Musical Society, Ann Arbor, Michigan
January 2016
Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles, California
November-December 2015
Athens Festival, Athens, Greece
June 2015
World Stage: Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Canada
June 2015
Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany
April 2015
The Public, New York, NY
November-December 2014
Festival d’Automne à Paris, in association with Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
October 2014
The Steirischer Herbst Festival, Graz, Austria
October 2014
Wexner Center for Arts, Columbus, OH
April 2014
Brown University, Providence, RI (Workshop)
April 2013
STRAIGHT WHITE MEN was co-commissioned by the Public Theater, the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Center Theater Group, Steirischer Herbst Festival, Festival d’Automne à Paris, and Les spectacles vivants du Centre Pompidou. It was produced by Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company.
Funding support generously provided by the Doris Duke Performing Artists Awards program; the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
SWM was developed at Brown University’s Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Providence, RI. Residency support was provided by the Park Avenue Armory, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Spaceworks NYC, and Columbia University.