Limp Wrist on the Lever

by Preston Choi '23

directed by Rosie Glen-Lambert/MFA1 Director

Performance Dates

Venue

Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre

Ticketing

Visit our ticketing page to purchase tickets. We hope you enjoy the performance, and encourage you to explore other titles in the Wagner New Play Festival! You can receive a 25% discount on additional festival shows using promo code WNPF after your first purchase.

Please contact our virtual box office at tdpromo@ucsd.edu if you need help with a promo code.

About the WNPF

This show is part of the Wagner New Play Festival, an annual festival of new works by MFA playwrights, in collaboration with MFA/PhD directors, actors, designers, stage managers, and dramaturges. 

The Cast

The Creative Team

Content Warnings 

Sudden screaming and other loud noises; flashes of light and other photosensitive effects

About the Play

A queer trio's escape plan from a conversion camp takes a topsy-turvy turn in their face off with a straight laced counselor. limp wrist on the lever puts teens at the helm of self-righteous torture, comrades versus traitors, and can you ever be sure you’ve really changed someone’s mind?

Director's Statement 

limp wrist on the lever is a melodrama about three queer teenagers who, after succesfully escaping a conversion therapy camp, choose to reenter the grounds, liberate the other campers, and convert the staff into progressive queer allies. Anita and Zo agree that torturing the staff is a valid method to achieve this goal. They find themselves at odds with Charli, who is uncomfortable with echoing the violence that was used by the staff at the camp prior to their takeover. He insists on taking a different approach with Thomas, a young member of the camp staff. Charli attempts to reeducate Thomas by exposing him to queer history and appealing to his sense of empathy. Unfortunately for Charli, Thomas is a sociopath who claims he cannot feel empathy and is incapable of changing and incapable of feeling remorse for the campers who he may have driven to suicide. Over the course of the summer, Anita, Zo, and Charli must decide how far they’re willing to go-and how closely they’re willing to resemble their oppressors-for liberation. A campy (in more than one sense of the word) dark comedy, limp wrist on the lever asks impossible questions about empathy, violence, and the costs of revolution.

About the Playwright

Preston Choi is a second-year MFA student and playwright from Syracuse, Atlanta, and Chicago whose work explores Asian American identity, social science fiction, and the horror of being alive. His plays include performing class (2020-2021 Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series, NNPN 2021 Bridge Program with Interact Theatre and Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists), The Migratory Patterns of the North American Monarch Butterfly and the Development of Fatherless Sons (2021 Kennedy Center Stephen Lim Playwriting Award; 2019 National New Play Showcase; 2017 Agnes Nixon Award), This Is Not A True Story (2018 CAATA ConFest), and Happy Birthday Mars Rover (The Passage Theatre). His plays have recently been developed with Silk Road Rising, Victory Gardens, Sideshow Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, Artists at Play, and Theatre Mu. He received a BS in Theatre from Northwestern University in 2018 and is currently a first-year student at UCSD's Playwriting program.   

About the Director

Rosie Glen-Lambert (she/her) is a first-year MFA student and theatre director originally from Los Angeles. She is the Artistic Director and Founder of the award-winning, Los Angeles-based theatre company The Attic Collective. Prior to beginning her graduate education, Rosie served as the Literary Manager of Inkwell Theater, a Los Angeles-based company that specializes in the development of new work.  Rosie is known for her inventive storytelling, her “more is more” approach to props, and her commitment to the collaborative process.

Everyone sees movies. Everyone goes to concerts. So why is it that theatre is the art form that has been rejected by so many as stodgy, unwelcoming, and “not for” them? Rosie wants to make up for that bad production of Two Gentlemen of Verona you were forced to watch in middle school. She believes theatre should be relevant and inclusive, which has led her to a deep appreciation for new work, devised performances, and purposeful productions and reimaginings of classic works. She is committed to building a world where everyone sees the theatre as being a place where they belong by creating performances that are engaging, inclusive, and relevant.

Rosie received her BA in Theatre Arts from UC Santa Cruz in 2014. Shortly before leaving Santa Cruz to move back to her hometown of Los Angeles, she formed The Attic Collective, a theatre company devoted to new work and devised performances. In 2015, her theatre company’s production of Dead Dog’s Bone won the Encore Producer’s Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, with Rosie nominated for Best Direction. The Last Croissant, her second Hollywood Fringe Festival production with The Attic Collective in 2019, was nominated for numerous awards and won Best of the Broadwater, Best Ensemble Production, and the coveted Top of the Fringe Award. 

Rosie has worked as a director, assistant director, dramaturg, producer, and theatre educator at theatre companies across and beyond Los Angeles, including Bootleg Theater, Portland Center Stage, Sacred Fools Theater Company, and Son of Semele Ensemble. She was named a 2020 Theatremacher by the Alliance for Jewish Theatre and has been a member of LMDA (Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas) since 2019. In her work as Literary Manager at Inkwell Theater she created a monthly cold reading series called “Virtual Playwright’s Night” which has connected playwrights, actors, and theatre lovers across the world and provided a platform for diverse writers to have their work heard. 

Rosie is thrilled to be continuing her education at UC San Diego.