HOME / MTI / MU Tang Clan Vol. 3

In 2021, Theater Mu’s Mellon Foundation playwright-in-residence, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, created the Mu Tang Clan (MTC) playwright incubator program in partnership with Theater Mu as part of several initiatives to develop more Asian and Pacific Islander American playwrights. For our third cohort, we’ve partnered with New Native Theatre to provide playwrights the space, time, and support to create a new full-length play (unproduced). 

Funded by the Jerome Foundation, we created an open call for local, early-career playwrights with 2-10 years of experience to apply to our paid four-month program. Through nine in-person weekly sessions, co-facilitators Rhiana Yazzie and Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay will guide playwrights as they workshop and discuss new pages and topics related to playwriting and the influences that impact their work. Playwrights will also receive 1-1 dramaturgical support of their new draft at the end of the nine sessions. Additionally, playwrights will receive a yearlong Playwrights’ Center membership and complimentary tickets to Twin Cities productions. 

MEET THE PLAYWRIGHTS

PAULINE MOLL (she/her, ella) is a community artist whose work connects us to our bodies, our stories, and each other. Her play temporary tattoo won the Horizon Theatre Young Playwrights Festival Contest in 2018. Pauline is an alum of Transformational Creative Strategies Training, the Heart of It Writing Retreat, and Up with People. She has taught theater and dance classes for many different people around the world, including co-teaching devising at Theater Mu in 2023. Pauline lives on Dakota land. 

KENG XIONG (he/him) is a Hmong American poet and storyteller based in Minnesota. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities with a bachelor of arts in English and bachelor of individualized studies in Asian American studies, creative writing, and leadership. His artistic work focuses on navigating the complexities of Southeast Asian voices and queer identities through poetry, in addition to theater and film. He remembers first writing to capture the oral nature of Hmong song poetry, or kwv txhiaj. Ever since, he has continued to write and publish poetry in places such as Electric Literature, Hmong American Ink and Stories, and the Midwest Review. He has also worked and performed with the Southeast Asian Diaspora Project, Exposed Brick Theatre, Theater Mu, and Mamá Papaya, in the Twin Cities. As an artist, he leads with love and curiosity, and looks forward to engaging and uplifting underrepresented communities and stories. 

DEXIENG YANG (she/her) is a Hmong American actor and emerging playwright located in the Twin Cities, MN area. Dexieng has worked with Theater Mu as an actor in The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide To Losing Your Virginity, The Last Firefly, Man Of God, and Again. Her other works include Good Kids at the MN Fringe Festival, Neighbors at History Theatre, Shul at Six Points, Mercutio Loves Romeo Loves Juliet Loves at the William Inge Festival, Sounds Inside at Red Eye Theater, The Humans at Park Square Theatre, and Sixpack at the Jungle Theater. She is a recurring cast member of the Island of Discarded Women podcast. She has showcased her one act Searching with SEA Echoes and Exposed Brick Theatre, as well as her 10-minute play In Between The Words Unspoken with SEA Echoes and Theater Mu.

ELENA YAZZIE (she/her) is a Navajo actress and emerging playwright originally from Phoenix, AZ, now based in the Twin Cities. She has worked with New Native Theatre and Frank Theatre, where she has developed her voice as a performer. With a background in acting, she is now expanding into playwriting, bringing her personal storytelling style to the page. She is currently developing her first play, with a focus on creating work that feels honest and connects with her community. 

MEET THE co-facilitators

SAYMOUKDA DUANGPHOUXAY VONGSAY (she/her) is a Lao American poet, essayist, and playwright. Her work focuses on creating tools and spaces for the amplification of Southeast Asian refugee voices through poetry, theater, and experimental cultural production. In 2024, she was the first Minnesota artist to receive a direct invitation to be a Kennedy Center artist in residence at the REACH to create her play, Buried by the Garden. She’s best known for her Kung Fu Zombies play cycle. The Smithsonian APAC, Theater Mu, Theatre Unbound, InterAct Theatre Co., and Mixed Blood Theatre have presented her plays. She has received fellowships from the Bush Foundation (2018, 2021), McKnight Foundation (2021), Center for Cultural Power (2021), Jerome Foundation (2012, 2017, 2021, 2024), Playwrights’ Center (2018), Loft Literary Center (2018, 2019), Twin Cities Media Alliance (2018), and is an Aspen Ideas Bush Foundation fellow (2018). She has received grants from the Knight Foundation, Forecast Public Art, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, MAP Fund, Andy Warhol Foundation, and dozens more. She is currently the Mellon Foundation playwright-in-residence at Theater Mu; a core writer at the Playwrights' Center; a Jerome Foundation AIR at Camargo Cassis, France; and a MN State Arts Board grantee. BA: English, UMN. MLS: public policy + arts and cultural leadership, UMN.

RHIANA YAZZIE (she/her) is a playwright, a director, TV writer, filmmaker, and a 2025 United States Artist Fellow. She is also a Lanford Wilson and Steinberg Award winning playwright. Rhiana wrote on AMC’s Dark Winds seasons 2 & 3 and wrote, produced, and directed her debut feature film, A Winter Love, currently seen in mainstream and Indigenous film festivals globally. She is working on her second feature film, an adaptation of a play called Wounspaye Wankatya, A College Education. She is one of the few women to have written and directed a play for the Kennedy Center: The Other Children of the Sun, which debuted February 2025. A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii dóó Táchii’nii), she is the artistic director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community, and it is the recipient of a 2023 Headwaters Bush Prize for Social Justice. Rhiana’s work in theater has had an important impact on growing the artform in Minnesota for the last 19 years; she has been a Bush Foundation leadership fellow and was recognized with a Sally Ordway Award for Vision.

About the Organizations

THEATER MU (pronounced “moo”) is one of the largest Asian American theater companies in the nation and the largest in the Midwest. Founded in 1992, Mu sits at the intersection of arts, equity, and justice, and it tells stories from the heart of the Asian American experience. Theater Mu’s continuing goal to celebrate and empower the Asian American community through theater is achieved through mainstage productions, emerging artist support, and educational outreach programs. Theater Mu is a member of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists as well as a member of the Twin Cities Theatres of Color Coalition, proudly standing alongside New Native Theatre, Pangea World Theater, Penumbra, Teatro Del Pueblo, New Arab American Theater Works, and Ikidowin. | theatermu.org 

NEW NATIVE THEATRE (NNT) is a new way of looking at, thinking about, and staging Native American stories. Created in 2009 by playwright Rhiana Yazzie, NNT produces, commissions, and devises authentic Native American stories for the stage, which means NNT’s artists are intricately connected to the concerns and voices of their communities. Since inception, NNT has created authentic and transformative plays and events through the lens of the Native American experience. Its focus is on nurturing and developing Native American artists. Its immediate gaze is on the 11 tribes in Minnesota and the urban Twin Cities Native community. NNT’s plays are shorthand meant to be played for its most vital audiences, Native people, because when specific stories are made for Native community itself, they become undeniably powerful for the broader community too, no translations required. | newnativetheatre.org

THE JEROME FOUNDATION, founded in 1964 by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972), honors his legacy through multi-year grants to support the creation, development, and presentation of new works by early-career artists. Jerome Foundation supports early-career artists and culture bearers who take creative risks, pursue innovative artistic approaches, and demonstrate a clear creative purpose and vision. By prioritizing artists at this pivotal stage, we seek to nurture their creative growth and recognize the dynamic, multi-dimensional impact they have in fostering thriving, evolving communities.

Special thanks to the Playwrights’ Center for providing annual memberships to each of our cohort members.

We also want to thank the theaters for providing complimentary tickets to shows and events: Theatre Elision, the Guthrie Theater, Lyric Arts, Ten Thousand Things, Park Square Theatre, Theater Latté Da, and Mixed Blood Theatre.

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