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丘茵茵

@yj.makesart

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YJ Yau/丘茵茵
they/them/他/佢
UW PATP ‘28
Actor, Musician, & Infamously Midwestern
Next up: Phèdre @ UW Drama

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“When the Earth Stopped Turning” from William Finn’s “Elegies”

—

This song has lived in my brain ever since I heard an incredibly vulnerable iteration of it in undergrad from one of my fellow music majors. Death is something every living thing will eventually experience, personally or peripherally. I think about death often and have done so for a very long time. The blatant disregard for the lives of others weighs heavily on me, and I am certainly not the only one that has felt the oppressive weight of it every day for the past several years now. It’s hard not to when we are able to see horrific things happening every day in the palms of our hands, sandwiched between animal videos and other media.

This performance is dedicated to the memory of my great grandmother. She’s the person I was thinking of and felt like I was with whenever I sang this song this quarter. I have visceral memories of being by her bedside in the last days of her life. I remember the voracity she had, making the most of every breath she had until the end. I remember her empowering me and reminding me just how much love she had for all of us. I remember not wanting to let go of her and knowing that I had to.

Zooming out back to the present, I see her resilience and deep desire to live as fully as possible mirrored in the lives of people that are faced with threat of their lives being cut short because of the cruelty and greed of others. Life is meant to be cherished. So we must live, because the world can be good. We can be good for each other.

With love,
YJ by @yj.makesart

then I woke up after falling asleep on my birthday and I woke up and it was still my birthday and the kitties woke me up because they don’t understand time in the same way i do so it was just any other day and they wanted to be FED. We sang in class and i was serenaded by the lovely voices of my classmates and professors that were in the room (2 for the price of one singing class!) and moved around in contact improv (love!!!) and laid in the sun before we got more Cathy (a full day of Cathy, hooray!) but all of us except Zoë got coffee before class an i still needed a nap but Richie made a great point of it being nice once ya just do it (the work) so i woke my ass up and did. We had popsicles in Heathen Valley rehearsal, made some exciting discoveries, and sang some more. My partner surprised me with field guides and my family surprised me with snacks (food is love) and phone calls, texts, social media posts, and an email were all sent and received with so much love.

A year ago, I was accepted into this program, and the gift of studying what I love especially in a world that is going through so much is something I am so grateful for. I’ve found my joy and have become greedy enough to create the life I want to live and a world for us all to cherish and protect.

Lucky to be 29 💕 let’s do this again, same time next year? xoxo YJ

(honorable mention to Kati’s charcuterie box she sent a few days ago that i forgot to include a picture of, so much cheese, so little time) by @yj.makesart

so let’s start

winter quarter began and so did rehearsals for bunny and then we learned about IPA (not the beer!) and greek monologues while stomping and we had sone of our last conversations with our third years and there was chekov and chekmarta or chermarsha and two mashas in the home. I went and saw a lot of theatre. I also saw some cool trees and other flora and fauna and fungi.

then Bunny opened (after the Seagull closed) and By Committee happened during the second week of bunny and we learned about how some people lived and died and dialysis was limited and many loved ones visited me in Seattle from all over (including from within seattle!) and old friends met newer friends and the love all began to mix in a beautiful way. I had a lot more coffee than I normally do.

Lots of people came up to me to tell me they hated Sorrel and that is okay because I love her. She’s so messy in some ways while being a brilliant person and she has a deep need to be loved and belong and to love in the way she knows how. She’s deeply flawed and so are we and so am I. I learned so much from Bunny and it was so exciting to play once I began to trust what I learned. This was an amazing opportunity my first year in grad school and I look forward to all that lies ahead!

Spring quarter begins tomorrow and it’s right back into it then. I turn 29 in a few weeks. Life chugs along and we will too, one breath at a time. Okay, I love you, until next time.

Photos by Christine Mitchell, permission granted to use by the University of Washington, School of Drama.

Other photographers featured:
me
olivia
jake
samantha
leora or brendan i’m not sure by @yj.makesart

Yesterday we had a staged reading of By Committee by Brendan Pelsue and directed by Leora Morris.

“By Committee mines archival research into real Seattle history to tell the fictional story of a psychologist in the early 1960s reckoning with an impossible task: go to people’s homes, administer Rorschach blot exams and IQ tests, and then turn her findings over to a secret group of some of the city’s most well-connected citizens, which will decide which of these people is “worth” lifesaving dialysis treatment. A collaboration between playwright Brendan Pelsue and Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing at the University of British Columbia Leora Morris, the play asks important questions about democracy, power, and how we imagine and value the lives of our fellow human beings.”

We had a wonderful time with this team, and cannot wait to see where the play goes next! by @yj.makesart

And so, Bunny Begins!!! by @yj.makesart

A year in theatre, plus a bonus of White Christmas 2024

One quarter into being a graduate student, I am beyond excited that making and experiencing theatre and art is my primary focus in life at this time. From the URTAs, shows in and around Champaign-Urbana, and a cross country move to Seattle, theatre and art making has sustained me.

Thank you to everyone that has been a part of this journey so far, I’m looking forward to many more years of this 💕 by @yj.makesart

“One Hundred Easy Ways”
Words by Comden and Green
Music by Leonard Bernstein

First showing day of grad school? Done ☺️ by @yj.makesart

Seattle so far

I like it here ☺️ by @yj.makesart

in summary: I’m moving and will miss the Station theatre DEARLY so you should come see this show.

[title of show] at the @station.theatre opens TODAY at The Station Theatre!!!. The Station Theatre holds a very special place in my heart, and this will be my last show at the Station for a while. Saying goodbye to her with a show that is a love letter to theatre, friendship, and community feels like kismet.

It’s wild to think that I’ve only done shows at the Station since 2023. In my mind, it had been such an impactful part of the community since college. I loved all the shows that I had seen there and knew I wanted to get involved. I’d auditioned a few times before, but never really expected to get cast because there was so much excellent talent in the community. After many an audition around the Champaign Urbana theatre circuit, I was fortunate enough to work with the Station as Shen Te/Shui Ta in a production of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Person of Setzuan” (June Clark Eubanks) in April of 2023. Since then, I’ve been a part of:

-“House of Desires” by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Christiana Molldrem Harkulich, 2023) as Doña Ana
-“Usual Girls” by Ming Peiffer (Jiawei Pei/KT Burke, 2024) as Kyeoung
-“Falsettos” by William Finn (Kendall Jeonson, 2024), Properties Desginer
-“Describe the Night” by Rajiv Joseph (Latrelle Bright, 2024) as Urzula U/S
-“POTUS” by Selina Fellinger (Mariana Seda, 2024)
-“Dance Nation” by Clare Barron (Christiana Molldrem Harkulich, 2025) as Associate Choreographer(!!!) and Amina/Ashlee U/S

And that brings us to [title of show] by Jeff Bell and Hunter Bowen (M. William Panel, 2025) where I will get to play Susan.

A lot has happened since 2023. I’ve worked many a box office shift, taken apart sets, laughed and cried (very loudly, I am not sorry), killed many flies, befriended the ceiling raccoons, joined the board, and met so many community members that come back again and again to support local theatre. Every late night, line missed, leak patched, and fire put out has been worth it because of the people that come through the doors of The Station Theatre.

Thank you, please join us for [title of show], June 19-29th at The Station. by @yj.makesart

28, they/them unlocked.

Hair by @lauren_doesmyhair by @yj.makesart

Casual- Chappell Roan

Cover by 丘茵茵

i love u, @chappellroan

yes my apartment is a mess, i have adhd and depression leave me alone (unless ur gopuff and tryna give me free snacks) by @yj.makesart

“Usual Girls” by Ming Peiffer, dir. Jiawei Pei and KT Burke, Jan. 25-Feb. 4, 2024.

Well, the show has been over for about two weeks now. It’s taken me about that long to process so much about this show, and how much growth and healing has come about since getting the opportunity to be with Kyeoung.
From the very start, the parallels of our lives had me in tears because it felt like for the first time, things I had been through were being talked about in an honest and ugly kind of way. Yes, there is hope in this world for things to get better, and I’m allowed to be angry at the shit that Kyeoung went through in this show and at the things that happened in my own life and this show has really been the first opportunity for me to be shamelessly angry about this shit, and in turn, it allowed me to heal.

There were so many people that shared their own ways that they connected to the show after they had seen it. I hugged strangers, cried with friends and cast mates, connected deeply with people I probably wouldn’t have otherwise, and had so many hard conversations that were sparked from this show, several of which needed to happen.

Thank you to the whole cast, we really did become a silly little family and I would not be asked to be bullied by anyone else. Truly, you were all so supportive through this whole process, and special shout out to Mahal for helping with captions was well as understudying Kyeoung, I hope being able to play her helped you too. I love every single one of you.

To KT and Jiawei, thank you for believing in me and helping me grow through this role. I appreciate your guidance and am so glad to have worked with you both.

Thank you to the designers, the box office volunteers, and the artistic team at the Station for everything you did to keep this show running and get us in shape when little fires kept popping up. Truly, this show could not have happened without all of your help.

And to everyone who saw it (some of you multiple times??? U wild children), thank you. I loved getting to talk to people after the show and getting to connect with so many of you was so validating.

I love you, Kyeoung. by @yj.makesart