Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord Tickets

By: Kristina Wong
Director: Chay Yew
Cast list: Kristina Wong
Design: Junghyun Georgia Lee
Lighting: Amith Chandrashaker
Costume: Linda Cho
Sound: Mikhail Fiksel

Comedian, writer, performance artist and elected representative Kristina Wong makes her off-Broadway debut at New York Theatre Workshop with the Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord play. This acclaimed artist’s new solo piece is a reflection on what we’ve been through, and an imagining of what we might hope to become. Get Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord tickets on TodayTix.

Trapped at home during the pandemic, Wong began sewing masks for first responders on her Hello Kitty sewing machine. As the lockdown continued, she built up an army of volunteers, sewing masks across the country, soon dubbed the Auntie Sewing Squad. But was the squad a feminst care utopia rescuing the U.S. public health system from disaster, or a mutual aid doomsday cult?

As the Squad’s work slows and the world comes back to life, Wong reflects on the community she built in isolation. She invites audiences into her thoughts and recollections, as she starts to put her own life back together. With warmth and humor, Wong dissects all we’ve been through together, and how we might make our new world better.

Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord is an off-Broadway play by Kristina Wong. She is a multidisciplinary artist who has toured across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She is also an elected representative, serving on New York’s Wilshire Center Koreatown Sub-district 5 Neighborhood Council. Her work has been praised by The Guardian as “pushing the envelope on race, rights and America.” Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord tickets are available now.

What to Watch For

• Wong’s longest running and most successful solo piece, Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, examined the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian-American women. It has also been made into a concert film, which was released in 2011.
• Wong sewed thousands of masks throughout the pandemic as head of the Auntie Sewing Squad, at first making them out of old bedsheets and bra straps.
• Wong is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a community of over 500 artists affiliated with and supported by the theater.
• Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord is directed by Chay Yew, last seen in New York with the acclaimed musical Cambodian Rock Band.
• New York Theatre Workshop is an acclaimed off-Broadway artistic hub which premiered Rent, Hadestown and Slave Play among many others.