MRT Presents Cambodian Rock Band

A Play By Lauren Yee
a co-production with Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago and City Theatre in Pittsburgh

By KhmerPost USA

LOWELL, MA – Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) will presents the East Coast Premiere of Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee, directed by Marti Lyons and featuring the songs of Dengue Fever, Sinn Sisamouth, Voy Ho, and Ross Serey Sothea, from October 16 to November 10 at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre.

Yee said, “Having these actors perform live was really the best way to celebrate what theatre does better than anything else, and also really give you a visceral sense of what this music felt like. It is particularly noteworthy that Cambodian music is not just covers of American or Western music. It’s really this modern, distinctive sound that is found nowhere else . . . traditional Cambodian music, French New Wave, some of the Vietnam War-era radio.”

Set in 1978, a father flees Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime. Thirty years later, his daughter attempts to piece together her family history, kicking off the events of Cambodian Rock Band, “a riveting play that’s part mystery, part history lesson, and part unabashed jukebox musical concert,” according to Broadway World. Rock Band celebrates the resilient bond of family through hardship and sacrifice and the enduring power of 70s music.

Award-winning, innovative Chinese-American playwright Lauren Yee is a San Franciscan, who currently resides in New York City. Cambodian Rock Band was named the winner of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award in 2018. Her plays, which have been performed throughout the world, include The Great Leap, The Song of Summer, King of the Yees, and The Hatmaker’s Wife, an Outer Critics Circle Award nominee for Best American Play. Yee’s plays have won the Horton Foote, Kesselring, and Francesca Primus prizes.

The cast of Cambodian Rock Band includes Eileen Doan (Pou, keyboards), Albert Park (Duch), Christopher Thomas Pow (Leng/Ted, guitar), Peter Sipla (Rom, drums), Greg Watanabe (Chum, bass), and Aja Wiltshire (Neary/Sothea, vocals).

For tickets to Cambodian Rock Band, call the MRT Box Office at 978-654-4678, or visit MRT.ORG. Tickets start at $24.