Tiananmen Square and basketball: Asian-American actors leap onto OKC stage for new show

It may not be the most unconventional show Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre has staged in the past year, but it's no "Great Leap" to guess that Lauren Yee's play of that name will show OKC audiences something they've never seen before.

"What I do love about what Lauren has done is she's married two things that should never be married: Tiananmen Square and basketball," said Brian Kim McCormick, one of the stars of OKC Rep's Oklahoma premiere production of "The Great Leap."

A Chinese-American playwright, Yee was inspired by events from her own father's life and short-lived basketball career when penning "The Great Leap," which premiered in 2018. Directed by Jessica Holt, the fast-paced show follows an American basketball team to Beijing for a "friendship" game vs. a Chinese team during the post-Cultural Revolution 1980s. 

The second title on OKC Rep's 2022-2023 season — the first was the unusual grown-up puppet show "Bill's 44th" — "The Great Leap's" Nov. 10-20 run at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center's Te Ata Theater will bring a play with a predominently Asian-American cast to the Sooner State. The show's four characters are Chinese-American, Jewish-American and Chinese.

"Oklahoma City is a very diverse city. ... There's a huge Asian-American community here, a huge immigrant community here, and they have not seen themselves reflected on stage in a way that I feel is by them, for them, and authentic and genuine," said OKC Rep Artistic Director Kelly Kerwin, who was previously at New York's Public Theater.

"Also, the basketball component did help me feel like this is the way to bring in Oklahoma City people. It's like, 'Hey, come see a play that might change your life' ... but also 'come see basketball.'"

In a pre-rehearsal Zoom call, Kerwin and local choreographer Hui Cha Poos, along with Asian-American actors McCormick, James Aaron Oh and Jenelle Chu, talked with The Oklahoman about taking "The Great Leap" in OKC.

There's not a very long list of plays that have largely Asian casts that are in the mainstream: Everybody's mind goes to 'The King and I' and 'Miss Saigon.' Can you talk about being a part of a show that's featuring so many Asian and Asian-American characters?

McCormick: "I grew up and my career started in Minnesota, where there is the second largest Asian American theater company in the country called Theatre Mu.

"So, I was fortunate to be surrounded by Asian artists at the early part of my career, and then going to New York, really found more of a collective there. ... It's exciting that not only are we getting these plays now that have a focus on historical events and context from an Asian writer's perspective — because I think that's been the biggest issue in the past when you have Rodgers and Hammerstein or (Claude-Michel) Schönberg and (Alain) Boublil on the other two shows that you just said — but we're also at this phase in the creation ... where there are plays coming out that are just about people — and they also just happen to be Asian."

Chu: "This is the first Chinese play I've ever done — and I've been doing this for a long time. It's actually new territory, I think, for a lot of Asian artists, that all of a sudden we're so seen ... because there are a lot of plays that are off-Broadway right now that are featuring Asian casts and Asian stories. ... So, things are shifting. I think that all of us are still trying to figure out how that works, but it's an amazing experience to be with each other."

Can you talk about your experience going to an OKC Thunder game?

Oh: "This is actually my second time doing this play, but basketball in my life has not been an extensive part of it. At least (where I live) in the Bay Area, we do have the Golden State Warriors, and you can't escape how in fervor people are, especially when they start going on their streaks and (Steph) Curry gets like 30-something points. But I don't play basketball ... and I haven't even been to a professional sporting event until the Thunder, which was a really fun experience.

"Watching it on TV, you're like, 'OK, yeah, they're moving it across the court.' I did not realize how many things are within, I guess, the show of it, that keeps it very interesting for the people in the seats. There's performances and contests and giveaways. And I'm like, 'What is this? On the screen, it just swipes to commercial and I see Henry's Vacuums or something like that.' You don't get that life until you're actually there — so it was a lot of fun to be there."

Chu: "I don't watch a lot of basketball, but my boyfriend does, like, a lot. I just love sports because it's like the modern Greek myth. It's where heroes are made, villains are created. There's so much drama in basketball: I know about the drama. I don't know the rules. ... The Thunder game was amazing. They lost, but they fought. And, listen, if they want to give us more tickets, I'm down."

There's not a lot of plays about basketball — talk about bringing basketball to the stage.

Poos: "I didn't do a deep dive into basketball until Kelly had the conversation with me and I agreed to do this. ... You can't really learn from the games: You're just watching; you're a spectator. But when you go to practice and you watch, you learn the whys. And you learn that it's a beautiful game that's a dance.

"Like soccer, or like any other sport, when you understand the strategy and you understand why they're doing, it then becomes a choreographic experience. So, that's how I approached it: I just tried to learn as much about the techniques and about the players and what sort of physical activities they needed to have. Then, I also tried to learn about the plays and how to weave that into the show."

McCormick: "The reality is how do we get new audience members interested and to come to the theater? I think we all know theater is hard to produce. ... We've seen the struggles that theaters have gone through over the last four or five years, especially with COVID. Sometimes people just don't even know what they're missing, but you need something to just glean their interest. This time it's basketball. ... And you would never know James has as little basketball experience as he says he does, because he's fire on that court."

Kelly, why was it important to you to bring this show to Oklahoma City?

Kerwin: "I had a really transformative experience ... and one of the biggest honors of my life to work hand in hand with David Henry Hwang, I would say arguably the most famous Asian American playwright. ... I was his line producer on 'Soft Power,' which is a musical with 16 Asian-American performers and one white woman.

"You can say the term 'representation matters,' and me, as a white woman, I believe it. I believe representation matters. But in the experience of that play, that musical, I felt it in my heart because I was watching an Asian-American audience see themselves reflected on stage. ... So, here we are with 'The Great Leap.'"

'THE GREAT LEAP'

When: Nov. 10-20.  

Where: Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center's Te Ata Theater.

Tickets: https://www.okcrep.org.

Features Writer Brandy "BAM" McDonnell has covered Oklahoma's arts, entertainment and cultural sectors for The Oklahoman for 20 years. Reach her at bmcdonnell@oklahoman.com,www.facebook.com/brandybammcdonnell and twitter.com/BAMOK. Support her work by signing up for her See & Do Oklahoma newsletter and subscribing to The Oklahoman.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Tiananmen Square and basketball: New show features Asian-American cast