ThoughtGallery.org > Tina Chen, Heroes of History: Legacy of My Chinese Family

Tina Chen, Heroes of History: Legacy of My Chinese Family

Through narrative and more than 150 images, Chen reconstructs tales of her great-grandfather, the Governor General of seven provinces under three Emperors and the Empress Dowager Tzu His; her grandfather, who was Sun Yat-Sen’s right-hand man during the founding of the Republic of China; and her mother, a Cambridge scholar who, after fleeing to Taiwan during the war between the two Chinas, took on work so secret she had to hide it from her husband.

Tina Chen is a Golden Globe, Emmy, and Drama Desk Award nominee. Her film credits include Tom Gries’s The Hawaiians (opposite Charlton Heston), which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination; Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (opposite Robert Redford); and Bertha Bay-Sa Pan’s award-winning indie film Face (opposite Bai Ling).

Her recent work includes Albert M. Chan’s award winning short film Descendants of the Past, Ancestors of the Future, for which she received the Best Actress Award given by the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival and a Best Actress nomination by Asians On Film, and Bertha Bay-Sa Pan’s Almost Perfect (opposite Kelly Hu, Roger Rees, Christina Chang and Edison Chen. She has recently completed principal filming for the new web series I Do.

Onstage, Chen has played leading roles in numerous productions on and off Broadway, including The Joy Luck Club, Arthur & Leila, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Year of the Dragon. She starred as a Japanese war bride in Santa Anita ’42, Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, and the iconic Mother Goddam in the legendary play The Shanghai Gesture, revived at the suggestion of Geraldine Page by Mirror Theater in 2009, Sabra Jones, Producing Artistic Director. Chen has also appeared as a matriarch in David Henry Hwang’s Family Devotions, a proud Korean grandmother trying to forget her past in Comfort Women, and the title role in Empress of China, among others. She has also directed a number of plays, including Kokoro/True Heart, Tea, and Fairy Bones (Lucy Liu’s New York stage debut). She is currently composing and writing a musical and a children’s book of Chinese fairy tales.

Her numerous honors include Pan Asian Repertory Theatre’s 39th Annual Legacy Award, Urban Stages’ 25th Anniversary Award for Artistic Brilliance, Women’s Project’s Women of Exceptional Achievement Award, the Girl Scouts’ Woman of Distinction Award, and the Anna Mae Wong Award given by the Asian Fashion Designers of LA.











When: Tue., Oct. 23, 2018 at 6:30 pm
Where: The New York Society Library
53 E. 79th St.
212-288-6900
Price: $15
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Through narrative and more than 150 images, Chen reconstructs tales of her great-grandfather, the Governor General of seven provinces under three Emperors and the Empress Dowager Tzu His; her grandfather, who was Sun Yat-Sen’s right-hand man during the founding of the Republic of China; and her mother, a Cambridge scholar who, after fleeing to Taiwan during the war between the two Chinas, took on work so secret she had to hide it from her husband.

Tina Chen is a Golden Globe, Emmy, and Drama Desk Award nominee. Her film credits include Tom Gries’s The Hawaiians (opposite Charlton Heston), which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination; Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (opposite Robert Redford); and Bertha Bay-Sa Pan’s award-winning indie film Face (opposite Bai Ling).

Her recent work includes Albert M. Chan’s award winning short film Descendants of the Past, Ancestors of the Future, for which she received the Best Actress Award given by the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival and a Best Actress nomination by Asians On Film, and Bertha Bay-Sa Pan’s Almost Perfect (opposite Kelly Hu, Roger Rees, Christina Chang and Edison Chen. She has recently completed principal filming for the new web series I Do.

Onstage, Chen has played leading roles in numerous productions on and off Broadway, including The Joy Luck Club, Arthur & Leila, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Year of the Dragon. She starred as a Japanese war bride in Santa Anita ’42, Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, and the iconic Mother Goddam in the legendary play The Shanghai Gesture, revived at the suggestion of Geraldine Page by Mirror Theater in 2009, Sabra Jones, Producing Artistic Director. Chen has also appeared as a matriarch in David Henry Hwang’s Family Devotions, a proud Korean grandmother trying to forget her past in Comfort Women, and the title role in Empress of China, among others. She has also directed a number of plays, including Kokoro/True Heart, Tea, and Fairy Bones (Lucy Liu’s New York stage debut). She is currently composing and writing a musical and a children’s book of Chinese fairy tales.

Her numerous honors include Pan Asian Repertory Theatre’s 39th Annual Legacy Award, Urban Stages’ 25th Anniversary Award for Artistic Brilliance, Women’s Project’s Women of Exceptional Achievement Award, the Girl Scouts’ Woman of Distinction Award, and the Anna Mae Wong Award given by the Asian Fashion Designers of LA.

Buy tickets/get more info now