This Memory doesn't Taste like a Birthday Cake

“What does memory taste like?” Having never celebrated a birthday, L is throwing her dream 28th—and you’re all invited, woohoo!

Emerging theater artist Andi Cui is premiering her new solo play, “This Memory Doesn’t Taste like a Birthday Cake” at Theater for the New City on Aug. 23-25, as part of the Dream Up Theater Fest.

“This Memory doesn’t Taste like a Birthday Cake” is a solo play inspired by real-life stories of children with incarcerated parents in China. The play digs a rabbit hole through L’s simple action of cooking favorite childhood dishes, bringing back fragmented memories with almost neurotic details of texture, taste, and smell to the present stage. 2 dishes and a long awaited cake for an imagined birthday, L unfolds her past in an intimate exploration of the childhood wounds that she once was unable to articulate.

Written and Directed by Andi Cui and starring Athena Yin, this play expands beyond parental incarceration to explore the unspoken ways how love, loss, guilt and hope wrestel in Asian families, and how can one make peace with a childhood fraught with regret and unresolved feelings. It stands as a vital, deeply personal response to global crises of youth mental health and familial trauma.

TICKETS
Tickets to “This Memory” is currently on sale by visiting: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35441/production/1283647
General Admission $15

Andi Cui is a New York based theater maker that writes, directs, performs and dramaturgs. Her practice centers on solo or small-cast works, utilizing episodic narrative and rabbit hole structures to foreground the usually unnarratable subtlety, dream-like absurdity, and emotional residue of everyday experience.

Playwright & Director: Andi Cui
Cast: Athena Yin
Dramaturg: Jia'er Liu
Stage Manager: J Payton
Scenic Design: Chelsey Meng
Lighting Design: Sadie Leopold
Projection Design & Photography: Ci Song

Thank you for your support, and see you in the theater!