Stuck Elevator
Oct 18 & 20, 2024 · Hawai’i Opera Theater
May 16, 17, 18, 2025 · Knoxville Opera
“A vibrant opera-musical theater hybrid with a story both personally compelling and eye-opening.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“… politically relevant, contemporary multimedia chamber opera.”
—Huffington Post
Stuck Elevator tells the story of a Chinese food deliveryman struggling for freedom from debt, human smugglers, loud-mouthed coworkers, and the temptations of General Tso. Based on the true story of an undocumented immigrant who survived 81 hours in a Bronx elevator, this comic-rap-scrap-metal-opera shows increasingly fantastical attempts to escape being trapped in America.
Audio (for educational use only)
2AM Saturday (7 hours after getting stuck)
Guang falls asleep and dreams about picking oranges with his wife Ming, before other characters from his life appear.
12:30AM Sunday (29 hours after getting stuck)
Guang remembers a delivery from 10 months earlier; dehydration fatigue means memory and dream begin to blur.
Sheet Music Videos (for educational use only)
Guang awakes from the nightmare of “Stickup” and discovers he has peed himself. He thinks about his wife Ming and 10-year-old son Wang Yue, who he left back in China.
Performers:
Julius Ahn, Guang
Lee Caron, percussion
Byron Au Yong, piano
Guang wakes after spending his first night in the elevator. He tries to cheer himself up reminding himself “It Could Be Worse.”
Performers:
Julius Ahn, Guang
Raymond J. Lee, Nephew
Shenghua (Simon) Hu, violin
Frederick Alden Terry, cello
Lee Caron, percussion
Byron Au Yong, piano
Trailer Video
Nashville Opera Magazine (click images to enlarge)
Audio Demo
Creative Team
Byron Au Yong, composer
Aaron Jafferis, librettist
Details
Duration: 81 minutes
Cast: 5-6 actors, 4 musicians
Stuck Elevator provides a personal entry point to thinking about and discussing topics that include immigration, labor, China, family obligation, and fortune cookies for an undocumented immigrant and indentured slave in 21st century America.
Characters
Guang 洸 (tenor)
Míng 茗/Ensemble (soprano)
Wáng Yuè 王岳/Nephew/Ensemble (bari-tenor)
Marco/Ensemble (tenor)
Zhong Yì 忠佚/Boss’Wife/Ensemble (bass-baritone)
Instrumentation
violin
cello
piano
percussion
soundtrack
Performances
Knoxville Opera
Venue TBA, Knoxville TN
May 16–18, 2025
Directed by Keturah Stickann, conducted by Judith Yan, performed by Allan Palacios Chan (Guang), Andre Chiang (Wang Yue and others), Helen Zhibing Huang (Ming and others), Luis Orozco (Marco and others), Paul Chwe MinChul An (Zhong Yi and others).
Hawai’i Opera Theater
Blaisdell Arena, Honolulu, HI
October 16, 18, 20, 2024
Directed by John Hoomes, conducted by Dean Williamson, performed by Taka Komagata (Guang), Joseph Lim (Wang Yue and others), Helen Zhibing Huang (Ming and others), Luis Orozco (Marco and others), Paul Chwe MinChul An (Zhong Yi and others).
Nashville Opera
Noah Liff Opera Center, Nashville, TN
January 20 – 22, 2023
Directed by John Hoomes, conducted by Dean Williamson, performed by Julius Ahn (Guang), Joseph Lim (Wang Yue and others), Ivy Zhou (Ming and others), Luis Orozco (Marco and others), Paul Chwe MinChul An (Zhong Yi and others).
International Festival of Arts & Ideas
Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT
June 20 – 29, 2013
Directed by Chay Yew, music directed by Frederick Alden Terry, performed by Julius Ahn (Guang), Raymond J. Lee (Wang Yue / Nephew / Ensemble), Marie-France Arcilla (Ming / Ensemble), Joel Perez (Marco / Ensemble), Francis Jue (Zhong Yi / Boss' Wife / Ensemble), Shenghua Hu (violin), Frederick Alden Terry (cello), Byron Au Yong (piano), Lee Caron (percussion); produced by ArKtype.
American Conservatory Theater
The Geary, San Francisco, CA
Performance Program
April 4 – 28, 2013
Directed by Chay Yew, performed by Dolores Dolores Duran-Cefalu (music director / pianist), Julius Ahn (Guang), Raymond J. Lee (Wang Yue / Nephew / Ensemble), Marie-France Arcilla (Ming / Ensemble), Joel Perez (Marco / Ensemble), Joseph Anthony Foronda (Zhong Yi / Boss' Wife / Ensemble), Daniel Ostling (scenic design), Myung Hee Cho (costume design), Alexander V. Nichols (lighting design), Kate Freer (projection design), Mikhail Fiksel (sound design); produced by ArKtype.
Stuck Elevator is the first in a musical trilogy that explores:
1. What Americans fear,
2. Liberation from oppression, and
3. Asian men who receive media attention.
The next two are:
2. The Ones, a.k.a. (Be)longing, a.k.a. Trigger, a music theater forum about coming of age in an age of guns.
3. Activist Songbook, an ongoing collection to counteract hate and energize movements.
Awards
Best Opera, Nashville Scene
Outstanding Original Musical, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Outstanding Principal Actor in a Musical, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award
NEA Art Works Award
Press Quotes
“Audacious, compelling and hugely imaginative.” —Leo Stutzin, Huffington Post
“... claustrophobic and expansive, intimate and existential, personal and political all at once.” —Frank Rizzo, Variety
“... one of the more ambitious, listenable modern scores in contemporary musical theater.” —Andrew Beck, Hartford Arts Examiner
Resources
Words on Plays
A.C.T.'s in-depth performance guide includes interviews with the creative team and specific details about immigration related to Stuck Elevator (PDF).
Asian Americans in Opera: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Nancy Yunhwa Rao includes Stuck Elevator in this overview in the Oxford Research Encyclopedias.
Staging a Moving Map
Karen Shimakawa’s essay about Stuck Elevator published in Neoliberalism and Global Theatres: Performance Permutations.
AALDEF
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund focuses on critical issues affecting Asian Americans, including immigrant rights.
A/P/A Institute at NYU
The Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University provides interdisciplinary resources for community leaders, cultural producers and scholars such as an artist-in-residence program.
Define American
A media and culture campaign that holds conversations about immigration and citizenship in America.
Support
Stuck Elevator is a project of Creative Capital.
Developed, in part, by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program with additional support from the Sundance Institute’s Time Warner FoundationFellowship.
Developed, in part, with assistance from the A/P/A Institute Artist-in-Residence Program at NYU and Yale Institute for Music Theatre.
Touring made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Support for developmental workshop productions from 4Culture, Artist Trust, API/2, City of Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Hand2Mouth’s Risk/Reward New Performance Festival, Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, Museum of Chinese in America, New York Theater Workshop, On the Boards’ NW New Works Festival, Theatre Off Jackson, Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.