Works by Ayla Xûan Chi Sullivan:
LAST STOP
WE ARE THE WAKE
Synopses:
Last Stop – Last Stop is a semi-autobiographical play that explores the nature of family, survival, and trans identity through the lens of one of America’s most overlooked professions: Vietnamese nail technicians. We follow Nga, a First Generation American, on their journey of navigating a biracial, binational, and non binary identity as they work in a nail salon run by their grandfather and mother.
We are the Wake – We are the Wake is a musical about how far the Living will go to honour their Dead. Set on the largest mass grave in the country, New York’s Hart Island, we follow Ardella, a 19-year-old activist who uncovers the island’s history as she searches for her boyfriend Jeremiah, an inmate at Riker’s Island and state sanctioned gravedigger for Hart Island. In her search, Ardella finds a reoccurring theme that people lost to the island tend to be who society forgets: Black, Indigenous, Queer and Trans People of Colour.
Bio:
ayla xuân chi sullivan (they/them) is a Black and Vietnamese, non-binary, performance artist from the lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Ute colonially known as Denver Colorado.They are an actor, a playwright, a director, a poet, an educator, and a co-founder of Shift 23 Media. Sullivan’s work is often referred to as “love poems addressed to people in our community we are conditioned to forget”: Black, Indigenous, Asian, Queer and Trans People of Color, those experiencing homelessness, immigrants, and anyone who is (or has been) incarcerated. Harlem based, Sullivan is the inaugural New Visions Fellow of National Queer Theatre and the Dramatists Guild. Their work has been showcased at MCC Theatre, The Other Side of Silence, throughout the Denver Metro Area, and briefly in Dakar, Senegal. They have been published in American Theatre, The Dramatist, Playbill, Westword, and 303Magazine. In Television, they are a 2021 Screenwriter’s Episodic Colony alum and developing a series with Hillman Grad. In opera, they’ve written librettos with composer Jack Frerer for the Albany Symphony and Arapahoe Philharmonic. From 2016-2019, Sullivan served the Denver Metro Area as your second Denver Youth Poet Laureate.
Stage Credits: Jubilee for a New Vision Screen Credits: Girls5Eva, You, Me, and the FAFSA, D.A.M.E.
BFA: University of Colorado Boulder MFA: Columbia University
Website: www.aylasullivan.com