Catch as Catch Can Tickets

By: Mia Chung
Producer: Playwrights Horizons
Director: Daniel Aukin
Lighting: Marika Kent
Sound: Bray Poor
Design: Matt Saunders
Costume: Enver Chakartash
Cast list: Cindy Cheung, Jon Norman Schneider, Rob Yang

Playwrights Horizons begins its fall season with Mia Chung's Catch as Catch Can. Get Catch as Catch Can tickets on TodayTix.

Catch as Catch Can is a play that centers on two families: the Phelans and Levecchias. These Irish and Italian American families, respectively, live deep in blue-collar New England, and their world gets shaken by two major events: the return of the Phelans' son from California after many years, with a new fiancée; and the surfacing of mental illness in one of the characters. Prejudices arise, tensions boil over, and these once inseparable families may at least be torn apart.

In this production, all the characters are played by Asian American actors, giving a new layer to Catch as Catch Can's themes of anti-Asian bias and the idea that things aren't always as they seem. Plus, as written, each of the three actors plays two characters, a man and a woman each: one parent and one of their adult children.

This double-casting structure differentiates Catch as Catch Can from typical family dramas and highlights the traits and biases that get passed down from parent to child.

The first production of Catch as Catch Can in New York was in 2018, at the New Ohio Theatre. Chung's work, which also includes the shows This Exquisite Corpse and You For Me For You, has been performed across the U.S. and internationally.

Get tickets to Catch as Catch Can off Broadway now.

What to Watch For

• The phrase "catch as catch can" means using whatever assorted means or materials are available to do something.
• This is the first production of Catch as Catch Can to feature Asian actors; in past productions, the Irish American and Italian American characters were cast as such.
• Catch as Catch Can was first presented by Page 73 Productions. That company also produced the professional-premiere shows of now-acclaimed playwrights, like Pulitzer winner Quiara Alegría Hudes and Pulitzer finalists Heidi Schreck and Clare Barron.
• Catch as Catch Can is directed by David Aukin, the former artistic director of Soho Rep. He has helmed plays by famous writers like María Irene Fornés and Sam Shepard.