Tiger Beat follows the Girls Next Door, a pop girl group rising to fame in the early 2000’s. The group’s Asian American songwriter Tess finally gets a chance to sing lead, but the opportunity comes at what cost? This play with music is a coming of age story about pop stardom, 2003 fashion choices, and the pursuit of artistry on one’s own terms.
Playwright
Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin
Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin (they/she) is a writer, producer, performer, and educator. Originally from Mountain View, CA, with stints in Indiana and New York, Garvin is a founding member of Undiscovered Countries, a Brooklyn-based incubator of new interdisciplinary art. Garvin is a 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival finalist, a 2021 Seven Devils Conference and Kendeda Playwriting Award finalist, and the recipient of six Kennedy Center awards, including the Mark Twain Comic Playwriting Award and Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Awards. Their plays have been developed with The Alliance Theater, Montana Repertory Theater, and College of the Holy Cross, and have been produced in New York at venues including Dixon Place, the New Ohio, and Ars Nova. Their work examines the spaces where privilege and oppression overlap through humor, history, and pop culture. Garvin currently teaches playwriting at Cornish College of the Arts. They received their MFA from Indiana University and BFA from NYU.
Director
Jessica Holt
Jessica Holt (she/her) is thrilled to return to the Bay Area Playwrights Festival where she has previously directed workshops of Truest by Megan Cohen, Sycamore by Sarah Sanders and dramaturged Brownsville Song (B-Side for Tray) by Kimber Lee. Selected credits include: Ironbound by Martyna Majok (A.C.T.), Kate Hamill’s Sense and Sensibility, Fun Home, Venus in Fur (Virginia Stage Company), the world premiere of The Resting Place, and the West Coast premieres of Bright Half Life, The Lily’s Revenge, Act 5 (Magic Theatre), Speech and Debate (Barrington Stage Company), Rich Girl (Florida Studio Theatre), the world premiere of The Daughters (San Francisco Playhouse), and Ugly Lies the Bone (Alliance Theater). She has also developed and directed new work at Cape Cod Theatre Project, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Rivendell Theatre, Pocono Mountains Music Festival, Sewanee Writers Conference, among others. MFA, Directing: Yale School of Drama. NNPN Affilianted Artist and 2016 National Directing Fellow. Proud member of SDC, Ring of Keys, and Wingspace. She is currently in development with The Kilbanes on their new rock musical The Code.
Dramaturg
Natalia Duong
Natalia Duong (she/her) is excited to return to Playwrights Foundation after working as Assistant Dramaturg on Dustin Chinn’s Colonialism is Terrible, but Pho is Delicious in 2018 and acting in the Rough Reading Series for Starr Finch’s play Side Effects in 2020. She has also directed, choreographed, and/or performed with Oakland Theater Project, Crowded Fire, Shotgun Players, Magic Theatre, Campo Santo, The Forum Collective, ACT, and La Jolla Playhouse. Natalia received her BA from Stanford University, her MA from New York University, and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley before becoming a Visiting Assistant Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies at Pomona College. After discovering her initial love for choreography by dancing along to all things pop in the early 2000s, she is thrilled to be a part of the Tiger Beat team for this year’s festival!