Exotic Deadly (Or The MSG Play)

by Keiko Green

Directed by Jennifer Chang

Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with a special re-mount of EXOTIC DEADLY, OR THE MSG PLAY by Keiko Green MFA '22, directed by Professor Jennifer Chang and featuring a predominantly AAPI cast and creative team.

Performance Dates

The Cast

Ami - Sarah Chan
Exotic Deadly, etc. - Gabrielle Chen
Ojichan, Kenji, etc. - Jonathan Fong
Mom, etc.- Kristine Nguyen
Ben, etc. - Christopher Hin
Matt, etc. - Naomi Louie

The Creative Team

Playwright: Keiko Green
Director: Jennifer Chang
Assistant Director: Tyler Nii
Scenic Designer: Nicholas Ponting
Costume Designer: Grace Wong
Video Designer: MJ Sieber
Sound Designer: James Forest Reid
Production Stage Manager: Alex Luong
Assistant Stage Manager: Iris Wang
Production Assistant: Abby Stein

About the Play 

It’s 1999, and Ami is an awkward, Japanese American high school girl, just trying to stay as invisible as possible. But her world comes crashing down with a terrible discovery: her family is responsible for manufacturing MSG, the poison spice getting all the kids hooked. Meanwhile, a mysterious new girl arrives from Japan. Her name? Exotic Deadly. She’s loud, she smokes, and she’s not playing by the rules. Who… or what is she? In this time traveling adventure, Ami vows to save the world from MSG and realizes what she’s capable of, if she would just stop being invisible.

About the Playwright

Keiko Green (Playwright) is a playwright, performer, and second year MFA Playwriting student at UC San Diego. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia to a bilingual household (Japanese and English). She received her BFA from NYU's Tisch School with a focus on Experimental Theatre. Keiko lived in Seattle for six years, where she is a Core Company Member at ACT Theatre and a former member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre's Writers' Group. In 2017, her play "Nadeshiko" won the Gregory Award for Outstanding New Play, as well as landing on the Honorable Mentions for the national Kilroys List. At Annex Theatre, she wrote the book and lyrics for the musical “Bunnies," as well as the Comic Con show "Puny Humans," co-written with Bret Fetzer. Her plays have been developed with support from the Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, ACT Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and the Playwrights Realm. She was a finalist for both the Many Voices and Jerome Fellowships at the Playwrights Center. As an actor, Keiko has performed at the Denver Center of Performing Arts, Seattle Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre, and the National Asian American Theatre Company among others. Keiko's original work focuses on marginalized voices, specifically spinning narratives to centralize characters that are usually plot devices.

About the Director

Jennifer Chang (Director) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose research interests include immersive and site-specific/ site-responsive theatre experiences, new play development, re-envisioning canonical works, and puppetry.  She is committed to anti-racist practices and decolonizing storytelling.  Recent directing projects include Where the Mountain Meets the Moon at South Coast Rep and the LA premiere of Hannah and the Dread Gazebo by Jiehae Park.  She received the 2019 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for direction for Vietgone by Qui Nguyen (at EWP). Jennifer is a founding member of Chalk Repertory Theatre where she has served as Artistic Producing Director and produced, directed, and acted in numerous plays over the course of eight seasons and was honored with an Ovation Award and the Stage Scene LA award. Other directing credits include Animals Out of Paper at East West Players (LA Times Critics Pick), Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them for Artists at Play (GLAAD Media Award and Ovation Award Nominated) and Our American Story at the Japanese American National Museum. She continues to be very active in the development of new plays with Playon! Shakespeare, Center Theatre Group, the Geffen Playhouse, Circle X Theatre Company, Playwrights Arena, Chalk Rep, and East West Players among others. Select acting credits: South Coast Rep, East West Players, Company of Angels, Mixed Blood Theatre, Fulton Opera House, and the National Asian American Theatre Company; television credits include Mom,  Two and a Half Men,  NCIS: LA,  Parenthood, Medium, The Paul Reiser Show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and others, and numerous national commercials. She was a Visiting Professor at Pomona College's Department of Theatre and Dance, continues to teach in the conservatory at the East West Players and has been a guest artist and guest director at USC and Texas State University, San Marcos for the Black and Latino Playwrights Conference. She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), Actor’s Equity Association (AEA), and the Stage Directors and Choreographer’s Society (SDC). She is a 2018 Drama League Directing Fellow (NY Fellowship), an alumnus of Director's Lab West and won the 2019 APAFT award for direction.  As Head of the Undergraduate Acting program, she advises students, teaches acting and directing, and directs full productions for the department, and directed the 2018 and 2019 MFA actor showcases. She is on the inaugural Director’s Council for the Drama League.  Upcoming work includes On Gold Mountain by Lisa See and Nathan Wang for LA OPERA at the Huntington Gardens.  She received her M.F.A. from the UCSD in 2006, where she was a recipient of an Arthur Wagner Scholarship and an Excellence in Teaching Award. She received her B.F.A with Honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts at the Experimental Theatre Wing and Playwrights Horizons, double-majoring in Psychology.