Playwright Jeffrey Lo is everywhere these days
S.J. native has two new plays opening and a third coming out in September
Good luck keeping up with Jeffrey Lo. Right now the San Jose native is everywhere all at once as a playwright and director.
The world premiere of Lo's play “Waiting for Next” just opened at City Lights Theater Company in San Jose. On Friday, Berkeley's TheatreFirst premieres his play “Balikbayan Box.” This fall San Francisco's Custom Made Theatre Co. debuts another new play of his, “Zac and Siah or, Jesus in a Body Bag.”
Meanwhile, Lo directed Jessica Huang's play “The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin,” which is playing through June 18 at San Francisco Playhouse. He also directed City Lights' last production, “Vietgone” by Qui Nguyen. All this is in addition to his staff gig as casting director at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. “Balikbayan Box” was scheduled to premiere in January and “Zac and Siah” in February. “Waiting for Next” was originally planned for a September 2020 premiere.
“Before the pandemic, this was all much, much more spread out,” Lo says. “`Waiting for Next' got the original COVID delay, then the delta delay, and both `Balikbayan Box' and `Zac and Siah' were in rehearsals and got the omicron delay.”
Written for the two actors that perform it, Max Tachis and Wes Gabrillo, “Waiting for Next” follows two friends from their first meeting at age 12 through many life changes into their 40s.
“I was like, I want to write a play for the two of you, just so we have an excuse to hang out,” Lo says. “And so I wrote this scene about these two friends who meet at 12 years old for this 10-minute play thing at City Lights. And we were having such a great time that even before we got to performing the first 10-minute play, I came in and I'm like, oh, I have the next scene for these two guys. And then I had the next scene, and then I had the next scene.”
The years that “Waiting for Next” has been in the works have shaped the play in a way that mirrors its subject matter.
“This play is set against a lot of life milestones,” Lo says. “What's so beautiful about working on this play with these two actors is at different points in this play's process, all three of us were single. Now both I and Wes are engaged, and Max is married. As the play evolved, it became very much about fatherhood, and now Wes and Max are both fathers.”
“Balikbayan Box” is another two-person play, about a Filipino American chef in an arranged green card marriage with a teacher from the Philippines with her own dreams and aspirations. The play takes its title from large delivery boxes traditionally filled with gifts for friends and relations on visits to or from the Philippines.
“I was ruminating on these ideas about someone who was coming to America and falling in love with the concept of America and the dreams that they would hold in America, and a person opposite them that was falling in love with them,” Lo says.
The play he's directing at San Francisco Playhouse, “Harry Chin,” explores similar themes, about the false identities some Chinese immigrants had to assume to get around the United States' Chinese Exclusion Act.
“Within a lot of these communities, there's a sort of defense mechanism or a survival mechanism that they sort of have to keep their blinders on and pretend that these bad things didn't happen,” Lo says. “This play is really looking at the generational trauma that holds and finding a way to heal from that.”
Juggling so many projects would take its toll on anyone, but Lo remains upbeat.
“After I complete the string of commitments that I had from the pandemic that all got squished together, I definitely want there to be more space in between,” he says. “But although it's really challenging energy-wise and bandwidth-wise, I didn't want to take for granted that these stories I was given the opportunity to help tell were so important. I was like, I have to do this, because this is why I chose to do this work. I wouldn't be able to justify it if it was only fun. I love doing theater, but also I want to do work that I think is making an impact. If one of these things was like `Noises Off,' I'd probably be like, `Hey, could you find someone else to do this?' ”