ARTS & CREATIVE WRITING EDUCATION & PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Professor Alvin Eng specializes in teaching Playwriting, Memoir Writing, Creative Nonfiction, Dramaturgy/Script Analysis, New Play Development, Solo Performance, Inter-Disciplinary Devised Theatre, Asian American Theatre and Literature, Theatre Studies and Creative Memoir Writing. He has had Full-Time Academic Appointments, Visiting Professorships and Residencies on the Undergraduate and Graduate level. He is a two-time Fulbright Specialist Scholar appointee in Theatre/U.S. Studies. During his first appointment, he was Artist-in-Residence at City University of Hong Kong and invited by the U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, to conduct theatre workshops and perform his memoir monologue, THE LAST EMPEROR of FLUSHING, in his family’s ancestral Guangdong Province.

SELECT ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

Undergraduate Appointments

Fulbright Specialist Artist-in-Residence, Playwriting/Devised Theatre, CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG (2011)

Assistant Professor, Theatre, GOUCHER COLLEGE, Baltimore, MD. (2012-17)

Full-Time Substitute Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts and Public Speaking, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK (CUNY)/Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) (2019-2021)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts, MARYMOUNT MANHATTAN COLLEGE (2017-present)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Creative Writing & Theatre Arts, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY (2004-2012, 2022-present)

Graduate Appointments

Visiting Assistant Professor, Playwriting, MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, CUNY, (2016)

Guest Lecturer, Playwriting, MFA Creative Writing Program, (Distance Learning /Low Residency) ST. FRANCIS COLLEGE, Brooklyn, NYC (2019)

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Hong Kong Handover: 25 Years Later

NYC Chinese American Artists Respond in Images, Words & Music

Awarded a 2022 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement grant to curate, host and perform in this interdisciplinary performance, artist presentation and Town Hall discussion program: Hong Kong Handover: 25 Years Later:NYC Chinese American Artists Respond in Images, Words and Music. The event was held on October 14, 2022, at the Church Street School for Music and Art in Tribeca, NYC.

In this year (2022), the 25^th Anniversary year of the “Hong Kong Handover” from Great Britain back to China, Chinese American artists will to explore Hong Kong’s relationship with and impact on NYC’s Chinese American community…through images (moving and still), words (spoken and sung) and music. We will explore the historic precedents that planted the seeds of anti-Asian American laws and biases that have been festering in this country since Asians first arrived. The lineup consisted of:

Presenting Artists (in order):

Alvin Eng (acoustic punk raconteur)

Sammy Yuen (artist/illustrator)

Xu Xi  (novelist/essayist)

Lorin Roser (video art)

Nina Kuo (painting)

Chen Yi & Zhou Long (Introduction on video to concert footage of the finale from Humen, 1839Performed by Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra, conducted by their Music Director Jing Huan

Panel Discussion moderated by Joanna C. Lee

Stage Manager: Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li

Curated and Hosted by Alvin Eng

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Asian Identity Justice

NYC Theatre Students respond to the Rise in anti-Asian Hate Crimes

Asian Identity Justice: Produced and curated a virtual devised theatre presentation of Asian American students writing and performing their own original theatre pieces created in response to the spike of anti-Asian Hate crimes in NYC. For CUNY/BMCC’s Asian Heritage Month celebration 2021.

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CITY AS MUSE:

Arts Conversation & Creative Writing/Performance Workshop

Both components of this Program explore the influence of New York City on the work and subject matter of artists from all disciplines, genres and eras. The Arts Conversation Series debuted with art historian and psychoanalyst Laurie Wilson reading and presenting slide images from her book, Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow, about the legendary LES sculptor and Russian Jewish émigré.

In the Creative Writing/Performance Workshop component, participants utilize playwriting, spoken word and performance techniques to engage personal histories in a dramatic dialogue with NYC’s rich artistic, cultural and social legacy.

In 2018, CITY AS MUSE co-founders Alvin Eng and Wendy Wasdahl were awarded a Creative Learning Grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

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CONVERSATIONS ON DIVERSITY: ASIAN AMERICAN THEATRE––Creating Identity, Community and Culture

As an extension of initiating and teaching the first ever course in “Advanced Studies: History of Asian American Theatre,” at Marymount Manhattan College, was awarded a grant from to curate and moderate Asian American Theatre––Creating Identity, Community and Culture. Guest speakers included David Henry Hwang, Tony Award-winning playwright of M. Butterfly, performance artist Soomi Kim and Baayork Lee––devisor/originator of the ‘Connie Wong’ character in A Chorus Line and recipient of a 2017 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.

• •  •

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: GET INVOLVED!

Organized and conducted a post-performance talkback and workshop with the Theatre Program of CUNY/BMCC. The talkback/workshop followed a performance of 14 a docu-drama by José Casas about 14 Mexican immigrants who tragically died from dehydration while trying to cross the border near Yuma, AZ.

NYC GRIOT STORIES – Using improvisational acting and oral history techniques, worked with students to create and perform interdisciplinary performances. CUNY/John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Improvisational Theatre Workshop.

TRYING TO FIND “Chinatown”–CUNY/BMCC Asian Heritage Month Celebration. Play Reading and Town Hall discussion: Creating Platforms in the Arts for Under-Represented Voices.

THE MOURNING AFTER 09.10.19, play reading and 9/11-themed poems and reflections from the CUNY/BMCC Community. BMCC is in the shadow of Ground Zero and lost several community members in that attack.

HONG KONG TIME CAPSULE (2011)

For my Fulbright Specialist residency at City University of Hong Kong, co-created and directed a devised theatre workshop in which students wrote and performed dramatic works in response to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. This Americana play actually contains many Chinese influences due to Wilder spending part of his childhood in China when his father was U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The students also conducted genealogical and Hong Kong historical research to craft their plays. The plays and their research where presented before a public and invited audience. (To read more about this residency, please click on the link to an article from The Dramatists Guild Magazine.)

Our Town at 75 by Alvin Eng

GOUCHER PLAYWRIGHTS OPEN STUDIO

In this program, Playwriting and Musical Theatre writing students received staged readings and discussions of their works-in-progress before a public audience and invited special guests. The invited guests included theatre professionals from neighboring Baltimore and Washington DC, as well as scholars and similar authorities on the play or musical’s subject matter. The program also included field trips to see theatrical productions and meet the creative teams behind them.