Judy Tan says "Your Mother"

hi there! this is Mother. not your mother. i will be playing the role of Mother Wu in Surviving the Nian. i must say, blogging is a strange experience. blogging is at once writing to no one in particular and everyone in the world. very weird, but exciting nonetheless, because i'm writing to potential audiences of Surviving the Nian!!!

but perhaps even stranger is the fact that i am a 26-year-old playing a 50-something-year-old mom. the closest thing i've given birth to is my undergraduate senior thesis, and if that were a child, god save us all.

it won't be the first time that i will be playing Mother. besides being caregiver of my younger (by 12 years) twin brothers growing up, i was a mom in two past staged readings of STN. and, under the miraculous direction of first eugene tan and then patrick wang, i began to embody Mother Wu. and, really, patrick can make a chicken play Mother Wu, he's that amazing. i feel totally confident and comfortable that he will be directing me on stage. part of being an actor, i've learned, is to completely trust your director, even more than your better judgment (since mine always turn out to be wrong anyway). it's in that letting go of yourself that you discover your character. it's a terrifying experience, but exhilarating, too.

currently, i am a graduate student at Univ. of Connecticut. although i'm not studying acting, i'm studying something close to it--psychology. i'm in my first year in a ph.d. track in social and health psychology. prior to grad school, i've worked at fenway community health (holla!) as a research associate. prior to that, i got my BA from mount holyoke college (holla!), where i continued my voice training since graduating from the "Fame" high school, laguardia h.s. of music and art and the performing arts (last holla, i promise). it's been crazy how i went from classical voice training to psychology to musical theater on the side. i must say, though, that when people asked the two-year-old me what i want to be when i grow up, my answer was, "a singer" and an actor, although i didn't know it at the time. here's to making dreams come true in Surviving the Nian!

Judy Feb 26

Melissa Li -- now Award Winning also!

I had had an inkling of what I was going to say when I was in the shower last Wednesday morning. But then 24 hours later, when I was on that stage accepting the award, I found myself shaking when I realized I was standing there alone. Abe was waiting by the stage for me to speak first.

What was I going to say? I wanted to be sincere, and I wanted to say all the things I had planned to say, but I also wanted to make it short and sweet.

I remember I thanked the foundation, then Abe, then my mother, and then my cousins. I remember trying extraordinarily hard not to cry - from being nervous and touched at the same time - or not to be distracted by the reverb of my voice in the room. I just remember thinking here's my chance to show Abe how much he's meant to me these last 4 years, and thinking here's my chance to show my mother and my family how their presence also meant the world to me. I don't know if I succeeded, but I was glad that I at least got a chance to say a few words acknowledging them in my first award speech ever.

Abe was charming on stage, as always. I knew he had practiced his punchlines in advance but they were great nonetheless. I'm glad he let me go first because it's always hard following Abe. I kind of wish the afternoon never ended. I'd never imagine that things would work out so well between me and my mother.

Melissa Feb 19