Wolf Play Tickets

By: Hansol Jung
Director: Dustin Wills Cast list: Esco Jouléy as Ash, Nicole Villamil as Robin, Mitchell Winter as Wolf, Christopher Bannow as Peter, Brian Quijada as Ryan
Design: You-Shin Chen
Costume: Enver Chakartash
Lighting: Barbara Samuels
Sound: Kate Marvin
Other info: Puppet design by Amanda Villalobos, properties by Patricia Marjorie

Inspired by a real-life phenomenon, Wolf Play’s action begins when a couple, who have a biological child shortly after adopting Jeenu, decide they can only handle raising one. They turn to a Yahoo message board, where a woman named Robin hastily agrees to take Jeenu. But having barely consulted with her partner Ash about it, Jeenu’s arrival sends their already shaky relationship into a tailspin. Further tensions ensue when Peter, Jeenu’s first adoptive dad, becomes wary over the fact that Jeenu won’t have a male father figure.

The character of Jeenu assumes a kind of double identity. Besides being a 6-year-old boy, Jeenu envisions himself as a wolf: fierce and looking for a pack. This metaphor threads throughout the play, and often, the character speaks to the audience either as Jeenu or as the Wolf.

Wolf Play is Jung’s second play in New York; her debut play, Among the Dead, premiered at Manhattan’s HERE Arts Center after she used it in her application to the Yale School of Drama. Among the Dead, like Wolf Play, was produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company, which supports the work of Asian artists.

Fellow Yale School of Drama graduate Dustin Wills directs Wolf Play in New York. He staged the show’s world premiere at Soho Rep in early 2022. He has directed a wide variety of theatre and opera for companies including The Public Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Soho Rep, and Yale Opera.

What to Watch For

• Wolf Play is inspired by articles Jung read about adopted children being “re-homed” on online forums like Yahoo and Facebook.
• Jeenu/Wolf isn’t played by a boy or an animal — he’s represented by a puppet, operated and voiced by an adult actor.
• Jung’s plays often explore themes of unlikely relationships and chosen loves that span continents. Just as Wolf Play has feet in America and Korea, her play Wild Goose Dreams tells of a love affair between a North and South Korean, and Cardboard Piano is about an American and Ugandan teenage girl who get hastily “married.”
• In 2015, Jung had three plays, the most of any writer that year, on the Kilroys’ List of excellent, underproduced plays by non-male writers. One of these was Wolf Play. In 2016, a fourth play made the list.
• Though Wolf Play premiered last year at Soho Rep, MCC’s production technically marks its Off-Broadway debut. The Soho Rep production was classified as Off-Off-Broadway, as the theatre had less than 100 seats.