Artist of the Month-March-Jingan Young

I was born and raised here. It's my home and yet it's also not my home. My family reside all over the world and I've been so privileged to have traveled so much in my youth; to have friends from all different cultures is a gift but I must admit being mixed race can definitely be difficult at times - I've always been drawn to writing about people who have a very honest and true sense of who they are - culturally. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest I've never really felt truly at home anywhere. I love travelling, seeing, experiencing new things...

I went to Kings College London for my BA (hons) English with Film Studies and finished up my Master of Studies in Creative Writing at Oxford University. Living in London and being accepted onto The Royal Court Theatre's Young Writers Programme as well as Hampstead Theatre's (now defunct) Youth company Heat & Light - which staged one of my plays in the theatre Downstairs - opened doors for me. I then went on to working with various groups putting on my plays at Keble O'Reilly, Oxford and Jacksons Lane, London - where last year my non-profit POKFULAM RD PRODUCTIONS 薄扶林道© staged another of my plays The T-Group at the Anatomy Theatre, King's College during the Kings Arts & Hums Festival.

It changes (often) though I suppose for the past couple of years it's been site-specific. Just that you can put on a play anywhere - that's one the many joys of theatre. It's all about the relationship with the audience.

This changes too but looking through old ticket stubs it's between Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem at the Court (before it became the West End smash) or last year The World of Extreme Happiness at the Shed at the National Theatre.  Love theatre companies such as Headlong and Out of Joint. Anything directed by Katie Mitchell...

I have to be honest - since I've been back and forth so much since moving back to the city I've been pretty bad at keeping up with local productions but I can't wait to see my translator Simon Wang Haoran's "Red Chamber" on the 28th of February. I read his Blast and I am really looking forward to it.

 

 

FILTH and The T-Group which premiered last October in the Old Anatomy Theatre above Kings during the Arts & Hums Festival in London directed by Pippa Howie . We did it with our own money and resources and our actors were insanely talented and we sold out! 

 

This is a long winded answer - but in terms of the "writing process" somewhere crowded and often to a soundtrack. For instance, FILTH was written entirely to the Rolling Stones' Emotional Rescue..and a bit of Don Henley. 

Right now I'm working with my non-profit www.pokfulamrdproductions.tumblr.com and my artistic associate and producer Pippa Howie and Nicolette Barrett on a project about North Korea - hopefully all-female. We're raising funds at the moment. Would be incredible to do a preview here, perhaps at West Kowloon - but who knows? I want to continue to write plays that have a real political backbone and use human stories to communicate to audiences - plays that aren't just run of the mill - plays that say and perhaps change the way we see the world. This sounds terribly pretentious but that's how I've always seen theatre's and art's purpose.

Aside from the fierce nepotism? More funding from the Government for professional English productions - particularly new writing instead of simply importing English acts from abroad. I'd love a new playwriting scheme for burgeoning writers that actually promises a transfer or at least a production. There's a real lack of faith in English professional productions - that is, until now as FILTH sold out months in advance. More export, less import please.

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artist of the month, march