2022 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative
Winner: Dear Mr. C by Tidtaya Sinutoke
Synopsis
Dear Mr. C is an autobiographical play with music about love, family, grief, immigration, and cancer. It tells the story of a Thai immigrant musical theatre writer who tries to find peace after one phone call turns their world upside down. The writer, living in New York, learns that their mother back in Thailand has been diagnosed with endometrial cancer, receiving this shocking news only after a major operation. The writer struggles to deal with the reality of their mother's illness during a time when they are discouraged from traveling overseas because of their visa renewal process. The play arose from the many poems, monologues, and song ideas that Sinutoke herself wrote during that time to cope with the desperation, anxiety, and depression of not being able to be at her mother's side while she was recovering.
"I want to write this play to share some light toward an authentic immigrant story from my own experience," said Sinutoke. "As a female musical theatre maker, a person of color, and an immigrant, my main goal in writing is to express the meaning of identity, building a community where everyone can share their individual stories, and creating a new generation of theatre of authenticity; of everyone's 'American Dream'."
Artistic Staff
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Director
Janet Wilson -
Music Director
Maggie Marlin-Hess -
Pianist
Grace Eom -
Stage Manager
Jenefas Okonma -
Projection Design
Satomi Radostits -
Dramaturg
Kee-Yoon Nahm -
Program Design
Molly Briggs-Yonke -
Sound Engineer
Aaron Paolucci
Cast
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The Writer
Sanhawich Meateanuwat -
Ensemble 1
Rosie Hauck -
Ensemble 2
Satomi Radostits -
Ensemble 3
Zenon Zamora
About the Playwright
Tidtaya Sinutoke (ฑิตยา สินุธก) is a Thailand-born, New York City-based composer, writer, and musician. Composition credits include Half the Sky (The 5th Avenue Theatre's First Draft Commission & 20/21 Digital Season, Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Richard Rodgers Award finalist), Sunwatcher (The Civilians R&D Group, Weston Playhouse's Songs for Today, Ancram Opera House Play Lab, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Global Forms Festival), and Dear Mr. C (NYFA's City Artist Corps Grants).
She received the 2017 Jonathan Larson Grant, the 2020 Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award, the 2021 International Theatremaker Award, and the 2021 Fred Ebb Award. Her works have been supported by the American Opera Project, Composer-Librettist Studio at New Dramatists, Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed Musicals, Robert Rauschenberg Residency, EtM Con Edison Composer-in-Residence, MTF's Makers Cohort, and the Kurt Weill Foundation. Sinutoke is a proud member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, Maestra, MUSE, and the Thai Theatre Foundation. She received her B.M. from the Berklee College of Music and her M.F.A. in musical theatre writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
2022 Finalists
The Crossroads Project announces winner of the 2022 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative
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Andrea Coleman, Secrets
A comedic farce about three Brooklyn couples, their friends, and all the secrets they are trying to keep from each other.
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Kareem Fahmy, American Fast
Tells the story of college basketball phenom Khady Salama, who discovers to her dismay that the NCAA Women’s Championships coincide with Ramadan.
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Maximillian Gill, Fourteen Words
About a BIPOC journalist’s attempt to investigate the white supremacist movement online, set in the wake of the January 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.
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Nilsa Reyna, Legends of Texas
A family drama set in the Texas border town of San Juan about two politically opposed sisters who fight over what to do with their late father’s gun store.