Artist of the Month-July-Marsha Yuan
Marsha Yuan is a very talented lady who's become a staple of the local art scene and is a damn fine singer. You may have seen her in the past year in her original production When Rick Met Marsha. She's very talented indeed and much deserving of the AoM spot for July.
If you know someone who is worthy of the Artist of the Month highlight, please email us! We're open to all mediums of art and performance.
1. Name, Birthplace, Age
Marsha Yuan, Los Angeles, CA. (My age depends on the role I play.)
2. How does where you were raised affect your work?
As an American, I was taught in Theater School that I should always be on time and never get on someone’s bad side because you never know who will be able to help you in the business. I also feel that being a “guai mui” makes me a little more open minded than the local Chinese people in Hong Kong.
3. Where did you train?
I went to school at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York City.
4. What is your favorite style of theatre? Why?
I’d say that I love Musical Theater. It’s mainly because when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for a living, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to sing, dance, or act. And because Musical Theater has everything, I decided to try it out. I’ve always loved performing live because there is this energy that you get from the audiences that you can’t get from film or TV.
5. What was the best show you EVER saw?
It’s hard to pin point my favorite show. I’d like to come up with something creative...but, I guess I’d have to say “Les Mis” because, when I watched it at the age of 12 or 14, I remember feeling goose bumps when I heard the cast sing “One Day More”. It made me cry and I swore that one day I would be the one up on stage making a little girl cry. (In a good way :P)
6. What was the best show in HK you EVER saw? (You cannot say your own.)
I have to say that probably the best show that I saw in Hong Kong was “Burn the Floor” . I went to watch it with my good friend Eddie Villanueva and we were both blown away by the talent of the dancers and how tight the show was. It really brought us a lot of inspiration and we had to watch it a second time!
7. What piece of work are you the most proud of? (please include photo, if possible)
I think I can easily say that I’m most proud of the cabaret show “When Rick Met Marsha”. It was a show that Rick Lau and I decided to do together. We started off with nothing but some ideas and it slowly developed into a story intertwined with songs. It was definitely outside of both of our comfort zones. And there was a lot of pressure during the time of creating the show, rehearsals and then our opening night. It took a lot of time creating as well as rehearsing but it paid off in the end because we did a re run a few months later and we are actually doing another run in Guangzhou on July 6th.
8. What is your process like?
Understand what the show is about, digest it, get into my character, memorize, and rehearse. Practice makes perfect!
9. What is your dream project?
It would be my dream to be the lead role in a hit original musical on Broadway.
10. If you could change one thing about the art scene in HK, what would it be?
One thing I’d change about the art scene in HK would probably be that it would be more stable. What I mean is that shows would be like on Broadway where they would run for years. At least longer than a weekend. Sometimes I feel like I work so hard on a show and it’s only over a weekend or a night like for our dance show “Les Illusions De L’amour-A Dance Showcase”. We put so much work into it and only got to perform it for one night.
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