A Call to Support I Have a Dream in Chinese
- May 8
- 2 min read
I hear a scream. I’m back in the chair. One interrogation after another.
I Have a Dream in Chinese is a solo play about migration, language, race, memory, and survival. It begins on a flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver, and moves through a dreamlike landscape of interrogation, workplace humiliation, bureaucratic scrutiny, pandemic grief, and the fracture between two names, two languages, and two selves.
Again and again, the woman at the center of the play is asked: Who are you? Where are you from? What gives you the right to stay?
This is not a linear immigration success story. It is a play about what happens when safety comes with erasure, when belonging is always conditional, and when the body carries histories that do not disappear simply because you crossed a border.
This summer, we’re bringing I Have a Dream in Chinese to Ottawa Fringe 2026, and we’re raising funds to help make this production possible.
Your support will help cover the real costs of presenting an independent theatre work: rehearsal expenses, production support, design and technical needs, promotional materials, documentation, and the labor it takes to bring a new play to the stage with care and integrity. We will also be offering limited merch as part of this campaign, for those who would like to support the project in another way.
This play is deeply personal, but it is also political. It is shaped by immigrant experience, anti-Asian racism, the afterlife of the pandemic, and the pressure to become legible inside systems that never fully accept you. We believe this story deserves to be heard, especially now.
Supporting this campaign means more than helping one production get to Fringe. It means helping make space for a work about migration, memory, Chinese identity, and the cost of surviving by translation. It means supporting a voice that is often asked to soften itself, explain itself, or stay silent.
Every contribution, no matter the amount, makes a real difference.
And if you are not able to donate, sharing this campaign with friends, colleagues, and communities who care about theatre, migration, race, and contemporary performance would mean a great deal.
Thank you for helping this play arrive.
Read more about the production and Donate here.
Written by Irene Fan Yi.
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